No premium for the next block

11 October 2026 · Block 970,925 · Dubai

Every number in this brief was generated from our own Bitcoin node — bitcoind, Fulcrum, and mempool running on hardware we control. No third-party data vendors. You can verify all of it against your own node.

The Week in Numbers

Metric	Value
Price	$83,079 · AED 305,108 (−2.6% w/w)
Blocks mined (7d)	1,086 (+84 w/w · most in our series)
Fee to confirm next block	1 sat/vB (was 2 · 30-min: 1 · economy: 1)
Weekly median block fee	1 sat/vB (seventh week)
Mempool backlog	58,999 tx · 36.0 vMB (−20.7% by count · −11.5% by weight w/w)
Hashrate	1,019.6 EH/s (+5.8% vs 30-day avg · +7.9% w/w)
Difficulty	61.0% into epoch · est. +4.21% around Fri 16 Oct (last week's early read: −6.09%)
Miner revenue (last 1,008 blocks)	3,167.3 BTC — 99.45% subsidy, 0.55% fees

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Fee & Mempool Read: no premium for the next block

For the first time since Issue #2, our node's fee quote is flat across the whole curve: 1 sat/vB for the next block, 1 for half an hour, 1 for economy. Last week the next block cost 2. The median fee across this week's 1,086 blocks was 1 sat/vB — the seventh week running.

The backlog shrank. 58,999 transactions, down 20.7%, and 36.0 vMB, down 11.5% — the smallest queue by both measures since Issue #3. The fees inside it barely moved: 0.0578 BTC, down 4.6% — 5.78 million sats, about AED 17,600 for the entire backlog. Run last week's sum again: if every byte paid at least 1 sat/vB, 36.0 vMB would carry at least 36 million sats. So at most 5.8 vMB — about six blocks — pays 1 sat/vB or more, and at least 84% of the backlog pays under it. The line ahead of a 1 sat/vB transaction is still about six blocks; what left the queue this week was mostly the cheap tail behind it.

The top end got quieter where it counts and noisier at the edge. A typical block's 90th percentile fell to 2 sat/vB, from 3. The spikiest block of the week printed a 90th percentile of 74 sat/vB, against 20 last week — the highest since the 444 we flagged in Issue #4. One block, one burst; the median never left the floor.

What to do with this: 1 sat/vB for everything, including the next block. There is currently no premium for urgency. If you have been waiting on a UTXO consolidation, an old-wallet sweep, or an exchange withdrawal, seven consecutive weeks of floor-level fees is as clear a window as this series has shown — and it is still a window, not a guarantee. Set the fee yourself.

(How to consolidate safely — including the privacy trade-offs of merging UTXOs — is still on the list for a future issue.)

Mining & Security: the cut that became a rise

Last week's early reading was −6.09%, and we said not to plan on it. Good advice, as it turns out: at 61.0% through the epoch, the estimate now reads +4.21% at block 971,712 — a swing of more than ten points, in the other direction. The adjustment has also moved forward two days, to around 22:00 Dubai time on Friday 16 October, with 787 blocks to go.

The block count explains it. Last week we were 143 blocks into the epoch at 12m 03s per block. Since then the network found 1,086 blocks in seven days — about 9m 17s each, the busiest week in our seven-issue series — pulling the epoch average down to 9m 36s. Mid-epoch readings have been a much better guide than early ones: in September our mid-epoch +4.75% landed at +4.16%, and last epoch's −1.96% landed at −0.03%. Expect this one within a couple of points of +4%.

Hashrate printed 1,019.6 EH/s — the first reading above 1,000 in our data, up 7.9% on the week and 5.8% above its 30-day average of 963.9. Our seven readings: 912.4, 929.6, 942.6, 915.0, 955.5, 945.3, 1,019.6. The caveat: this figure is estimated from difficulty and block timing, so a fast week lifts it by construction. It is consistent with more machines coming online; the next two readings will tell us whether it holds. Price was down 2.6%.

Fees went the other way. 17.32 BTC of the 3,167.3 BTC earned over the last 1,008 blocks — 0.55% of miner revenue, the lowest in our series (0.62, 0.62, 0.59, 0.60, 0.69, 0.75, 0.55). That came with 7.8% more transactions confirmed (4.86 million), so the average fee per transaction fell from about 529 sats to about 356. More traffic, paying less: that is what a flat fee curve looks like from the miner's side. The security budget remains the 3.125 BTC subsidy.

Pool concentration: Foundry USA (27.1%), AntPool (19.7%) and F2Pool (17.3%) — 64.1% of blocks between three coordinators. Our readings: 59.3, 58.5, 58.4, 60.6, 61.3, 63.0, now 64.1 — a fourth straight rise, a fourth week above 60, and a new series high. Foundry (+1.3 points) and F2Pool (+1.1) both printed their own series highs; AntPool gave back 1.3, leaving the top two unchanged at 46.8%. Below them ViaBTC slipped to 9.3% and SpiderPool to 6.4%. The standing caveat: pool ≠ owner of the hashrate, and miners can switch — but four weeks of the same direction is the clearest trend in our data.

The UAE Angle

At AED 305,108 per coin, an AED 1,000 monthly DCA buys ~328k sats this week, up from ~319k. Six issues: 341k, 355k, 338k, 321k, 319k, 328k. A 2.6% dip in price is about 2.6% more sats for the same dirhams — the plan absorbs the move without anyone having to call it.

Withdrawals got cheaper for anyone in a hurry. A typical single-input self-custody withdrawal (~150 vB) now costs about 150 sats — roughly AED 0.46 — for the next block, half last week's next-block cost of AED 0.94. There is no longer a faster option worth paying for. If your exchange lets you choose the fee, choose 1 sat/vB.

The comparison that matters still hasn't moved. Across 2,270 fills we measured, buying directly in BTC/AED cost +63 bps over reference against +19 bps via USDT (100 bps = 1%). On an AED 10,000 buy that 44 bps gap is AED 44 — nearly a hundred times a next-block withdrawal this week. The network fee has gone to the floor; the rail you buy through hasn't.

For the diary: the next difficulty adjustment is now projected for Friday evening Dubai time, 16 October — two days earlier than last week's estimate, and a rise rather than a cut. It changes nothing for a holder. If you run or host machines in the region, budget for roughly 4% more difficulty from Friday, and note that the early −6% we told you not to plan around has reversed entirely.

Go deeper

At 1 sat/vB a next-block withdrawal costs under half a dirham — the 44 bps rail spread on an AED 10,000 buy costs nearly a hundred times that, and we measured it. The Real Cost of Buying Bitcoin in the UAE — 2,270 measured fills, direct BTC/AED +63 bps vs +19 bps via USDT. Free excerpt: https://bitcoiners.ae/intel/uae-rails-report · Full PDF, AED 149: https://buy.polar.sh/polar_cl_fXKk8gcM8YVJQ2tG3HXcAnp6cQnLGNJ5Vhhyc0djHk3

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Generated from our own node at block 970,925 · 11 Oct 2026, 16:00 GST.