Cryptocurrency mining is quietly approaching a profound structural turning point. On April 27, 2026, Spider Pool officially launched the NAT distribution mechanism, enabling Bitcoin miners to receive both BTC and NAT rewards from the same block. This isn’t just a simple feature upgrade—it’s a fundamental expansion of Bitcoin’s mining economic model at the block incentive level. As the boundaries of block rewards are redefined, the mining ecosystem’s revenue structure and the logic supporting network security budgets are entering a phase of recalibration.
Dual Rewards Per Block: Mechanism Goes Live
Spider Pool began official NAT distribution on April 27, 2025. As of this article’s publication, the mechanism has been running for a full year. The core innovation is that miners can receive NAT token rewards alongside Bitcoin block rewards—without any changes to their existing hardware. Every roughly 10 minutes, when a Bitcoin block is mined, NAT tokens are distributed simultaneously. This mechanism is built on the DMT-NAT protocol. NAT, as a native chain token within the Digital Matter Theory framework, shares the same public chain, hash power system, block production cycle, and receiving address as Bitcoin.
According to public data, the current NAT block output is about 386 million tokens, valued at roughly $90 per block. In its early days, NAT’s market cap briefly surpassed ordi, making it one of the most closely watched native assets in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Spider Pool, ranked fourth globally among mining pools, has now integrated NAT distribution, moving the mechanism from protocol concept to large-scale production and validation.
From Protocol Design to Mining Integration
To fully understand this development, we need to trace NAT’s protocol origins and Spider Pool’s integration path.
NAT is not a temporary incentive scheme for miners. The DMT-NAT protocol is rooted in Digital Matter Theory, aiming to build a native asset layer directly on Bitcoin’s mainnet—not relying on sidechains or Layer 2 networks. Its core feature is "common origin": NAT token issuance is strictly tied to Bitcoin blocks. Miners don’t need to allocate extra hash power, nor does it alter Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism. This design distinguishes NAT from colored coin schemes or the BRC-20 token standard seen in earlier Bitcoin ecosystem assets.
Chronologically, NAT protocol’s code was open-sourced and discussed by the community in the latter half of 2024. In early 2025, Spider Pool began internal testing of the dual-block distribution technology, launching it officially in April after several months of gray-scale operation. By April 2026, the mechanism had been running stably for a year, weathering fluctuations in Bitcoin’s network hash rate, price cycles, and real-world changes to miner revenue structures.
Data & Structural Analysis: The Economics of Dual Rewards
To assess the real impact of the NAT mechanism, we need to quantify it within the context of miner revenue structures.
Using current data, Bitcoin’s block reward is 3.125 BTC. As of April 27, 2026, with the Bitcoin price at $77,810.3, each block yields about $243,157 in BTC rewards. NAT’s block reward is worth $90—just about 0.037% of BTC’s reward. In absolute terms, this seems negligible.
But this perspective overlooks a critical variable: the dynamic relationship between NAT token price and miner costs. Spider Pool’s mechanism sets a stepwise value path—when NAT’s block reward reaches $50,000, it can meaningfully offset miner operating costs; at $500,000, it addresses Bitcoin’s network security budget sustainability. These thresholds correspond to NAT market caps of roughly $5 billion and $50 billion, respectively.
Structurally, the NAT mechanism creates a second revenue curve for miners, outside Bitcoin’s established deflationary issuance schedule. Bitcoin’s rule of halving every 210,000 blocks remains unchanged, but NAT rewards decrease independently based on hash power difficulty and block height. Overlaying these two curves structurally alters miners’ total income expectations—especially as future Bitcoin rewards trend toward zero. Whether this second curve grows to become the main source of income will shape the logic of the network’s security budget.
| Metric | Current | Stage 1 Target | Stage 2 Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| NAT Block Reward Value | $90 | $50,000 | $500,000 |
| NAT Market Cap | ~$90 million | ~$5 billion | ~$50 billion |
| Impact on Miner Costs | Negligible | Meaningful cost offset | Solves security budget issue |
| BTC Block Reward Value | ~$243,157 | — | — |
Community Perspectives: Consensus, Disputes, and Unresolved Issues
The mining community’s response to the NAT mechanism is clearly stratified.
Supporters focus on a central logic: the long-term sustainability of Bitcoin’s network security budget is a structural issue repeatedly discussed. As block rewards continue to halve, miners will rely increasingly on transaction fees, which are far more volatile than block rewards. NAT offers an incremental solution that doesn’t require changes to Bitcoin’s protocol layer—it avoids hard forks and monetary policy shifts, instead creating new income streams for miners at the application layer. This stance resonates with large miners, whose fixed costs are higher and who have a greater need for diversified revenue.
Critics zero in on NAT’s value capture logic. The key question: Where does NAT’s value come from? Detractors argue that NAT lacks clear use cases or value anchors, and its price is more driven by market expectations than actual utility. If miners continually sell their NAT tokens on secondary markets to cover operating costs, persistent sell pressure could depress the token’s price. Some observers also worry that exclusive deployment of such extra reward mechanisms by a single pool could further concentrate hash power, sparking renewed debates about mining centralization.
Neutral analysts highlight a deeper issue: Could the NAT mechanism evolve into a form of "tax," indirectly raising opportunity costs for miners outside Spider Pool? If NAT’s market cap keeps growing while other pools don’t adopt similar protocols, miners not participating in the distribution network are effectively foregoing incremental revenue. This doesn’t force hash power migration, but it does create an economic incentive tilt.
Industry Impact: Triple Reshaping of Mining, Network Security, and Asset Narratives
The rollout of the NAT mechanism impacts the industry along three main lines.
First, miner revenue shifts from a single curve to a dual curve. Traditionally, miners earn from block rewards and transaction fees, both tied to Bitcoin’s value. NAT introduces a second revenue curve, with its value independent of Bitcoin’s price. This means miners’ risk exposure is theoretically more diversified—even if Bitcoin’s price weakens, NAT’s price could move differently, and vice versa. This non-correlation is meaningful for mining operators’ financial planning.
Second, the framework for discussing network security budgets shifts. Historically, debates centered on two solutions: relying on a mature fee market or modifying the protocol to maintain inflation subsidies. NAT offers a third path—without any protocol changes, it introduces additional incentives via asset issuance at the application layer. If proven viable, this approach could ease ongoing concerns about whether transaction fees alone can sustain future hash power levels.
Third, Bitcoin asset narratives gain a new segmentation. NAT puts the concept of "native chain tokens" in the spotlight. Unlike inscriptions or runes protocols that require extra minting steps, NAT’s issuance is fully integrated into Bitcoin’s block production. This "zero friction issuance" gives it a unique position in asset narratives—it’s neither a protocol substitute nor a consumer of network resources, but a synchronized byproduct of block production.
Evolution Scenarios: Three Possible Paths Forward
Based on current observations, NAT’s future development can be summarized in three scenarios.
Scenario 1: Moderate growth, gradual penetration. Here, NAT’s price grows steadily, with block rewards reaching hundreds or thousands of dollars over the next few years. This is meaningful for large miners but not enough to trigger industry-wide structural changes. Spider Pool maintains its current scale, and a few medium-sized pools experiment with similar mechanisms. The mining ecosystem enters a period of sustained, non-revolutionary adjustment.
Scenario 2: Milestone breakthrough, industry-wide adoption. If NAT’s market cap surpasses $5 billion and block rewards reach $50,000, its contribution to miner revenue jumps from "minor supplement" to "substantial component." This creates significant competitive pressure, pushing other major pools to consider integrating similar protocols. The industry may develop standardized frameworks for miner bonus reward agreements, spawning multiple competing asset protocol schemes.
Scenario 3: Expectations unmet, mechanism marginalized. If NAT’s token price fails to grow or shrinks due to persistent sell pressure, block rewards remain negligible. In this scenario, the NAT mechanism becomes an innovative but economically insignificant experimental feature. The mining community refocuses on fee market development and Layer 2 solutions like the Lightning Network.
The likelihood of each scenario depends on the interplay between the token’s economic model and external market conditions. No path is predetermined, nor can any be definitively ruled out.
Conclusion
The launch of Spider Pool’s NAT distribution mechanism stands as one of the most noteworthy structural experiments in Bitcoin mining from 2025 to 2026. It doesn’t alter Bitcoin’s protocol layer, but it opens a new growth equation at the application layer of miner income models. Whether this equation yields a long-term answer for network security budgets depends on multiple variables—token price, miner behavior, competitive dynamics, and regulatory environment.
One thing is clear: For the first time, Bitcoin miners have a second formal reward curve originating from the same block, address, and hash power system. No matter how high this curve ultimately rises, it has already reset the baseline for discussions about mining economic models. For everyone involved in or observing the industry, understanding the logic and potential impact of this mechanism isn’t a matter of choice—it’s an essential lesson.
