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mempool 1y ago

Approximately 60% of bitcoin blocks are merge mining other chains (since the last halving).

That's down from a peak of 96% in April 2020.

For our latest nostr:npub1m7qjg4hsa2q32rtekewpdn54guh508tlh6ztml7ssluj6vgflensy6m4gz report, nostr:npub18h0w55nsp839ezxnggf00jd2xc6yl0ht62mf5p8wwllu8s80wdcs83ws8m analysed which merge mining schemes are in use, and which miners are using them.

Looking at recent data we see different miner / pool groups.

Group 1. No Merge Mining

Foundry, MARA, SBI Crypto

Group 2. AuxPow & “Chain A”

ViaBTC, F2Pool & Luxor

Group 3. Distinct switching pattern

Binance Pool, BTCcom, Poolin, Braiins, ULTIMUS

Group 4. Other

Antpool, SECPOOL

Taking a longer view looking back to the genesis block we see that adoption of schemes has fluctuated wildly over time!

Read the short report here:

https://research.mempool.space/merge-mining-report/

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OrangeSurf 1y ago

Any Q's hit me up

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YODL 1y ago

Great stuff. What do you make of that last atypical gap in group 3 you mentioned?

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OrangeSurf 1y ago

It would appear that something caused all the pools in group 3 to behave in a similar manner at the same time. More research is required but I thought it was worth noting

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YODL 1y ago

Definitely interesting, just curious if you had a theory. I know little about the process, but does that imply the reliant chains didn’t update at all for a stretch?

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OrangeSurf 1y ago

I'm avoiding speculation, just reporting what I see from the onchain data.

The gap does appear to be specific to only a subset (there are pools which didn't have any interruption) so I don't think it's an issue regarding the progress of the reliant chains.