After Bitcoin Core v30 went live, the most eye-catching change was simple: the OP_RETURN limit of 80 bytes was expanded to nearly the entire block size — meaning a single transaction can now shove in trash data that is tens of thousands of times larger than before.
The network data load has increased by approximately 50,000 times compared to previous levels.
Developers describe this as “a more open Bitcoin,” but translated for miners, it means this: blocks become cloud-storage buckets, the mempool gets stuffed even faster, and miners are the ones paying real money to fund this experiment.
In the short term, congestion pushes fees higher, and miner revenue seems to get a little “extra tip.”
But don’t forget:
- Transaction ordering becomes more unstable
- Block rewards grow more volatile
- Block space gets filled with oversized garbage transactions
Real, valuable transfers are forced to fight for space with higher fees.
In short, v30 isn’t an upgrade designed for miners — it’s a red carpet rolled out for inscriptions, odd protocols, and data-stuffing experiments.
These so-called pieces of “on-chain garbage data” are essentially turning the entire network into a free dumping ground. Every additional image or meaningless data write forces full nodes to bear extra storage costs — block sizes inflate, sync times grow longer, and hardware requirements keep climbing. And what is the result?
The original dream that “a home computer can run a full node” is being drained away bit by bit, leaving behind only institutional nodes capable of affording large-scale storage and datacenter-level costs. From this perspective, garbage data isn’t just taking up space — it is slowly pushing small participants away from the consensus table.
At the same time, Bitcoin’s price quietly slipped back to $95,000.
This drop pushed a large number of miners directly to the edge:
• Many S19-series machines are walking the tightrope at or even below shutdown price;
• Whatsminer M60-and-below models have fully stepped into the zone of “each kilowatt mined equals a kilowatt of blood lost.”
In other words, the protocol layer pressed the congestion boost button, while the market simultaneously pressed the price-crash boost button, squeezing from both sides.
Caught in the middle are miners still paying for electricity, site rent, and maintenance — especially small and mid-sized miners.
Some people say: “It’s fine — in the long run, transaction fees will become an even bigger source of miner revenue.”
But the real question is: can you survive until that ‘long run’ arrives?
While you are still calculating how to pay this month’s electricity bill or whether your cash flow will survive the next difficulty adjustment:
• Large mining farms are already sweeping up high-efficiency new machines at low prices;
• Top players are negotiating lower electricity rates and longer-term contracts;
• And Bitcoin Core’s strategic direction is quietly pushing one thing — boosting the removal of all miners and machines that are no longer efficient enough.
For the entire generation of S19, M60 and below, v30 isn’t an upgrade — it’s a verdict:
“Your era is over. Please exit quickly and free up electricity and rack space for higher-efficiency hashrate.”
If previous bear markets were “natural market washouts,”
this time it is a protocol-level strategic shift —
a deliberate removal booster, pressing the pedal to speed up the phase-out.
And what will the outcome be?
• Hashrate becomes even more concentrated in the hands of top miners and top-tier machines;
• Small and mid-sized mining farms, if they don’t upgrade or restructure their cost base, are left with only two paths: passive shutdown, or being forced to sell machines and power capacity at distressed prices.
So for miners who are still in the game, this is no longer the time to “hold on a bit longer,” but the time to calmly do the math:
- Calculate your real shutdown price clearly — not the optimistic spreadsheets circulating in group chats.
- Review your machine portfolio: the higher the proportion of S19 or M60-and-below models, the closer you are to the red line.
- Renegotiate electricity rates, rack space, and hosting terms — stop using bull-market thinking to sign long-term contracts.
- Consider whether part of your hashrate should shift toward higher-efficiency models, or into mining solutions that offer true technical optimization and cost advantages, instead of judging by surface-level “daily revenue.”
Bitcoin Core v30 is pushing Bitcoin toward a future that is more “congested but high-fee.”
And for miners, there is only one blunt reality:
Those who are not efficient enough will be swept out by this upgrade and this market cycle together.
Those who understand this are already adjusting.
Those who don’t — will soon be educated, harshly, by electricity bills and shutdown prices.
