In a recent interview with at BTC Prague 2024, Fred Thiel – CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings – shared his insights on several important aspects of the Bitcoin landscape, focusing on transaction fees, hash rate resilience, and global scaling initiatives.
Transaction fees and future trends
Thiel highlighted the conditions for Bitcoin transaction fees, noting that large loads requiring priority will result in higher fees. He emphasized that transaction volume in the mempool is the main driver, with various value-added services built on top of the underlying transaction fees. Thiel likens it to a hierarchy, where top-tier services ensure transaction finality and lower-level services operate based on less stringent standards. Thiel predicts that over time, transaction fees will Overcoming block allowance:
“Transaction fees will eventually surpass block subsidies, especially as block subsidies continue to decrease.”
Referring to Bitcoin’s hashrate resilience, Thiel pointed out that although there is There were predictions of a significant drop after the halving, but in reality it was less severe. He attributed this resilience to growth announcements from both public and sovereign mining companies. Thiel expects public miners to consolidate and form a smaller percentage of the global hash rate due to the entry of new sovereigns and other private entities into the mining space, this will reduce the total shares held by public mining companies.
Global expansion initiative
Thiel also discussed Marathon’s expansion into Kenya and UAE. He explained that these initiatives involve strategic partnerships at the sovereign level, leveraging underutilized energy resources to generate foreign direct investment, employment opportunities and government revenue. Thiel emphasized the role of the US government, especially Ambassador Meg Whitman, in facilitating these business activities. He believes that partnerships with tech giants like Microsoft and Google will help enhance these projects.
“It’s really a big initiative to monetize unused energy in Kenya.”
The interview also mentioned Marathon’s inclusion S&P 600 has recently seen sustained trading volume and increased institutional investment capital, with firms such as BlackRock buying back significant volumes of shares. Thiel mentioned that while organizational interests are growing, the company is also facing them short-term interest rates increased due to high level of liquidity.
Regarding the political environment, Thiel sees bipartisan interest in supporting Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining in Congress, as opposed to the stance of the executive branch. He emphasized Marathon’s support for political candidates that benefit the digital asset industry.
Itadori
According to Cryptoslate
