The fee share has dropped to near zero, and the miner security budget is indeed under enormous pressure. But whether it's "enough" depends on how you define "enough"—if you expect transaction fees to replace block subsidies right now, it falls far short. If you view the security budget as a dynamic system, with Bitcoin's price itself providing support, the situation is not so extreme.
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Step 1: Look at the Data—How Much Have Fees Actually Fallen?
In 2025-2026, Bitcoin transaction fees went through a structural collapse. After the brief boom brought by Ordinals and Runes faded, on-chain activity cooled rapidly. Currently, average daily fee revenue is less than $250,000, accounting for well below 1% of total miner income over the long term. Data from April 2026 shows daily fees at just 2.443 BTC, a 69% year-on-year drop, with fees at one point falling to roughly 0.3% of miner revenue.
At the same time, miners' average daily total revenue has dropped from over $50 million in the summer of 2025 to around $30 million. Currently, the block subsidy accounts for 95%–99% of miner income, and fees are basically negligible.
Completion standard: Be able to clearly state the real proportion of fees in miner income (<1%), and the fact that this figure once reached 7%–40% during the peak of 2024.
High-risk warning: The fee boom brought by Ordinals and Runes in 2024 led many to mistakenly believe that "the fee era has arrived," but the 2025-2026 data shows this boom was short-lived. If you are still using 2024 fee levels to assess Bitcoin's security budget, you will seriously overestimate the network's ability to withstand risk.
Step 2: Understanding the Two Answers to "Is the Security Budget Enough?"
In the industry, there are two completely different frameworks for judging this question.
Framework A: Total Amount Insufficient
Security experts like Justin Drake point out that the fee share has been below 1% over the long term, while the block subsidy halves every four years, meaning miner revenue is continuously shrinking. After the 2028 halving, the lower bound of Bitcoin's production cost is expected to rise to around $93,289. Following this logic, the current trend is: revenue is falling, costs are rising, and the security budget is indeed in jeopardy. If the theoretical daily miner revenue and actual revenue differ by 136% at the current $61,000 BTC price, it shows profits have been severely squeezed.
Framework B: Dynamic Price Theory
Fidelity proposed a different view in their June 2026 research report. Although miner revenue measured in BTC is declining, the average daily miner revenue measured in USD has actually risen by 157,836% since Bitcoin was created. The core logic is: the price of Bitcoin itself can compensate for the reduction in block subsidies. As long as the price continues to rise, miners' dollar-denominated revenue may still be maintained or even grow even as the block subsidy halves.
Pierre Rochard is even more direct: the security budget discussion itself commits a "category error"—block subsidies are meant to bootstrap the network's launch, while transaction fees are the mechanism that pays for finality. Fees haven't risen not because the network is failing, but because "censorship pressure is very low" right now, and users have no incentive to bid up fees.
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Step 3: Verify Which Framework Better Matches Reality
Let's cross-validate using current data.
Cost side: JPMorgan estimates the current average mining production cost at around $78,000, and Bitcoin's price has been below this level for five consecutive months. Listed mining companies' cash production cost in Q4 2025 was approximately $79,995 per BTC. About 20% of miners are already operating at a loss.
Hash rate side: Although the total network hash rate has pulled back, it remains at high levels overall. Mining difficulty was adjusted down by roughly 10% in June 2026, indicating some high-cost miners are indeed exiting, but no systemic collapse has occurred.
Structural change: Miners are accelerating their transformation, with AI/HPC compute hosting becoming a growing revenue source for more and more mining companies. CoinShares estimates that listed mining companies have announced over $70 billion in AI/HPC contracts, and some miners may shift up to 70% of their revenue to AI-related business in the future.
Common reason for failure: Many people directly equate "low fee share" with "the Bitcoin network is unsafe." But evaluating the security budget cannot be done by looking at the revenue structure alone; one must also compare the cost of an attack with the potential gain. Currently, the total network hash rate is nearly 1 ZH/s, and the hardware and electricity costs required to launch a 51% attack far exceed any possible profit. Low fee share means the network is not congested right now—not that it is unsafe.
Verification method for the completed operation: Open a research report page from Hashrate Index or Fidelity Digital Assets and check the trend lines for "hashprice" and "miner revenue." If hashprice stays below $30/PH/s/day, it means miner profit margins are very thin, but hash rate hasn't collapsed significantly—indicating miners are either holding on based on price expectations or subsidizing operations through AI transformation. To truly judge whether the security budget is sufficient, look at the economic feasibility of a 51% attack, not just the single metric of fee share.
