The real centralizing force isn't just software architecture. It's access to capital. ASIC manufacturing is dominated by three firms—Bitmain, MicroBT, and Canaan—with Bitmain controlling roughly 80% of the market. Getting ahold of these machines at scale requires fiat credit, industrial infrastructure, and cheap energy contracts. Small miners can't compete. They're forced into pools just to survive. The numbers prove my point: Year Top 2 Pools Top 6 Pools 2019-2022 ~35% ~75% 2023 ~55% ~90% 2025 60-70% 95-99% Foundry, AntPool, F2Pool, ViaBTC, and MARA now control the overwhelming majority of hashrate. This isn't just Stratum V1's fault. It's fiat capital concentrating industrial-scale hardware into fewer and fewer hands. The Blake2b problem: Same movie, different chain My prediction about BLAKE2b repeating this pattern is already happening. AlphaPool held over 50% of the BTCB2 network hashrate and announced it would "limit" itself to 30%—a voluntary cap that only exists because they were already dominant. And here's the kicker: the hardware for BLAKE2b mining is Goldshell and iBeLink ASICs. Guess who has the capital to buy those in bulk? The same industrial operations that dominate SHA-256. They just switch firmware and pivot. The Stratum V2 Illusion Some might point to Stratum V2 as the fix. It's true that it returns block-building power to individual miners. But Stratum V2 doesn't change who owns the hardware. It doesn't distribute capital. It just lets you build your own block template while still being dependent on industrial-scale equipment you probably don't own. The bench sees it clearly: you can't decentralize what's been centralized by capital. Pool software is just the puppet. The fiat credit system is the hand inside it. The Bottom Line The Blake2b chain will repeat the SHA-256 pattern because the same capital structures will buy up the new hardware, just as they did before. Different algorithm. Same hands. 🪑