Show Notes
Are Bitcoin miners abandoning Bitcoin for AI? Is Bitcoin's fee market broken? And did Michael Saylor get this one wrong?
In this episode of Bitcoin Boomers, Bob Burnett, Larry Lepard, and George Bodine dive into one of the biggest debates facing Bitcoin in 2026.
Public mining companies are pivoting toward AI infrastructure, hash rate is declining for the first time in Bitcoin history, BIP-110 has ignited fierce discussion throughout the ecosystem, and the future of Bitcoin mining may look nothing like what we've assumed.
If you care about Bitcoin's long-term security, mining economics, decentralization, or the future of block space, this is one conversation you don't want to miss.
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Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:31 State of Bitcoin mining today
02:15 Why hash rate is falling for the first time
05:05 Public miners are struggling
07:12 AI vs Bitcoin mining
10:28 Are our assumptions about mining wrong?
14:06 Decentralization improves as miners exit
17:15 Mining economics explained
21:18 Why public miners are pivoting to AI
27:12 "Good riddance" to Bitcoin miners?
31:05 Why AI is attracting all the capital
34:42 Is the four-year cycle still alive?
39:30 The real purpose of Bitcoin mining
43:12 Why block space matters
47:30 Banks could become major miners
52:02 Responding to Michael Saylor's comments
57:45 Can Bitcoin fees replace the subsidy?
1:03:42 Larry Lepard on BIP-110
1:08:55 Thinking 10–20 years ahead
1:13:20 Final thoughts
Bitcoin #BitcoinMining #MichaelSaylor #AI #BIP110 #LarryLepard #BobBurnett #GeorgeBodine
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Bob Burnett was named executive chairman of Ocean on September 1st, three days after Luke Dashjr resigned. In this episode he explains what actually happened, why he thinks the BIP-110 push was never going to work, and why he doesn't think the people behind it are villains.
Larry Lepard, Bob Burnett and Gary Leland on the September move: Bitcoin caught air off 62 and ran to 81 before settling near 77, the Fed's rate decision, Treasury buybacks tripling to $6 billion, and why half the people mining Bitcoin are probably losing money right now.
"Not today you don't." The Boomers open with the question every holder secretly googles — do you owe taxes on Bitcoin you never sold? — and the answer detours through gold teeth, seventeen nuclear aircraft carriers, and Larry calmly explaining why he thinks this asset goes to a million dollars… then ten. Bob puts a number on the network nobody can picture (900 exahashes — more raw computation than every supercomputer on Earth combined), George explains why that's "the magic of Bitcoin," and then the fork question lands: what actually happened at block 961,632 when BIP-110 tried to split the chain — and why one side kept mining forever while the other managed two blocks.