1. Changes in Mining Pool Hashrate Rankings

Based on data from   :

- SpiderPool announced the distribution of $NAT , and its hashrate quickly rose from the 5th place in the entire network, briefly surpassing F2Pool (Shenyu Pool) to reach 3rd place
- Real-time hashrate data shows SpiderPool falling back to 4th place, with F2Pool returning to 3rd place, and the hashrate gap between the two is very small (about 4 PH/s)
- The top two positions are still held by Foundry USA and AntPool, with a significant hashrate advantage, maintaining the first tier

2. What is $NAT ? Why can it trigger a hashrate battle?

$NAT (DMT-NAT) is a native accompanying token in the Bitcoin ecosystem, characterized by sharing the same hashrate, block, and address as BTC. Miners do not need additional equipment and can earn NAT rewards simultaneously while mining BTC.

- SpiderPool is the first mainstream mining pool to distribute NAT on a large scale, effectively giving miners “extra money,” directly increasing miners’ actual earnings
- In the context of miners’ income declining after Bitcoin halving, this “dual reward” model is highly attractive, leading to a large migration of hashrate to SpiderPool
- To retain miners, leading pools like F2Pool quickly introduced NAT distribution mechanisms, officially kicking off the industry’s “hashrate involution”

3. The subsequent impact of this battle

- Miner level: An additional source of income, enhancing mining risk resistance, but also forcing miners to constantly switch pools to chase the highest rewards
- Pool level: NAT distribution has become a “standard feature,” and most mainstream pools in the network are likely to adopt it in the future. Hashrate competition will shift from purely fee and settlement modes to “extra token incentives”
- Industry level: Tokens like NAT are restructuring Bitcoin mining’s economic model, partially offsetting the revenue pressure caused by halving, and may even influence the “security budget” logic of the Bitcoin network

💡 In simple terms, this is like the “subsidy war” on food delivery platforms: SpiderPool first offers miners “coupons” to attract users, other platforms follow suit, and eventually it becomes an industry-wide involution, with miners as short-term direct beneficiaries.