On April 22, 2024, the host of the Mining Disrupt News Surge pulled up Mempool.space to show what the fourth Bitcoin halving had just done to transaction fees. He opened with the numbers: Bitcoin at $64,565, or 1,549 sats per dollar, only about $1,000 above where it sat a week earlier. Then he warned viewers that the episode was about what he called stupid people, and that anyone easily offended should click away. He later explained that the anger is mostly channeled for entertainment.
The Golden Block: When Fees Surpassed Subsidy
He started with the most recent block, found by Foundry USA about five minutes before he recorded. Its total reward, subsidy plus fees, was 5.609 Bitcoin.
the total reward for this block that just happened five minutes ago was 5.609 Bitcoin, $364,000
Host · 1:41
Then he went back a few days to the halving block itself. There, he said, the total paid in subsidy plus fees was 40.75 Bitcoin, about 2.6 million USD at the time, which he called incredible. The blocks after it were massive too: he read off totals of 7.6, 10, 19 and 27 Bitcoin. He also showed a chart from Orange Surf BTC covering 68 blocks after the halving, in which fees were astronomically higher than the subsidy.
The $500,000 Transfer of 70 Cents
To show who was paying those fees, the host read a post from Vivek for real about one transaction in the halving block. This, he said, was where the stupid people came in.
someone just paid $500,000, half a million dollars for their 70 cent amount transfer to be included in the Bitcoin having block
Host · 3:32
The host put the figure at nearly 800 million sats to send 70 cents of value. His point was simple: someone paid an enormous fee to move almost nothing, purely to land in a particular block. For the host, that single transaction summed up the week better than any chart.
Miners Licking Their Chops: The Short-Term Windfall
Before naming names, the host made a point he said lets you profit off of this. He read a post from Jameson Lopp, a well known Bitcoin developer, on how much miners had collected after the halving.
In the first 60 blocks since the fourth Bitcoin having, miners have collected 860.2 Bitcoin in transaction fees alone, equivalent to over 54 million USD
Host · 4:52
The host admitted that fees had already come down drastically and said he expected the spike to be over in a relatively short time, but said that anyone mining during it was licking their chops. For viewers who think mining is out of reach, he pointed to the Mining Disrupt Expo in Miami, June 24 to 26, 2024, as a place to learn about every aspect of mining. He also showed small home miners: a Bitaxe from one seller for under 200 bucks and another, sold as Bitcoin merch, for 220 bucks. He did not promise riches: a device like this is unlikely to earn thousands of dollars in Bitcoin, he said, but it helps decentralize the network, and pointed at a pool it will get you something.
Rune Mints and Burned Capital
Then he turned to the people paying the fees: speculators minting runes and inscribing data during the halving. He read a series of posts from people who had lost money trying.
But did I just nuke $5,000 trying to mint a rune that sold out before my transaction confirmed
Host · 6:25
Others were worse off. One account said it had wasted about 25k during the season; another reported a similar loss while still managing to grab a few runes; another said it burned 5k as well. The host said what truly confused him was how people making these choices had money to burn in the first place. He also said that if viewers could not spot these people around them, they might want to check whether they were one of them. His tone was harsh on purpose, but the underlying point was about cost: thousands of dollars spent on fees for tokens and inscriptions that, in his view, had no lasting value.
The Speculators Who Hate Bitcoin Now
The same author of the $5,000 post wrote that early feedback was that they were screwed, then that the transaction had confirmed and the Bitcoin was gone, adding "I hate Bitcoin now." The host also shared a post from Ghost of Maples listing what some of these buyers were paying to inscribe, with names like a dog going to the moon, a cat on a skateboard and a rune hammer.
Sovereign Whispers and the $220,000 Question
Changing gears, the host covered ETF news from Bitcoin Archive, citing Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas: BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF made up 24%, nearly a quarter, of the firm's total net flows for all its ETFs in just four months. He closed with a post from Max Keiser, whom he called the high priest himself, made the day before the halving. Keiser said a price of $220,000 was in play and that a mystery sovereign nation, most likely Abu Dhabi in his view, would soon be revealed as a buyer. The host treated it as speculation.
The high priest himself saying that $220,000 is in play
Host · 8:30
He said it would be interesting if and when that happens, because the questions that follow are natural: why would an oil rich nation buy Bitcoin, and should the rest of the world be buying it too. When this episode aired on April 22, 2024, Bitcoin traded at $65,910 by our reference price; on October 26, 2026 it was $80,448. The conversation continues at Mining Disrupt 2027, March 22 to 24 in Irving, Texas.