---
title: "Fidelity Argues Bitcoin's Security Has Strengthened Through Its Halvings"
description: "Fidelity's digital-assets research arm has pushed back on a long-running worry about Bitcoin — that the network grows less secure each time miner rewards are cut — arguing in a new report that, so far, the opposite has happened."
category: "Crypto"
category_url: https://boursel.com/category/crypto
author: "Kenji Nakamura"
published: 2026-06-27T21:43:40.000Z
updated: 2026-06-27T21:43:40.000Z
canonical: https://boursel.com/article/fidelity-argues-bitcoins-security-has-strengthened-through-its-halvings
tags: ["bitcoin", "halving", "mining", "fidelity", "hashrate", "crypto"]
---
# Fidelity Argues Bitcoin's Security Has Strengthened Through Its Halvings

Fidelity's digital-assets research arm has pushed back on a long-running worry about Bitcoin — that the network grows less secure each time miner rewards are cut — arguing in a new report that, so far, the opposite has happened.

Fidelity Digital Assets, the digital-assets arm of the fund giant Fidelity, has published research rebutting a fear that has trailed Bitcoin for years: that the network becomes less secure with each "halving." In a report written by analyst Daniel Gray, the firm argues that Bitcoin's security has, through four halvings, gotten stronger rather than weaker, [Cointelegraph reported](https://cointelegraph.com/news/fidelity-bitcoin-long-term-security-halvings-report).

## The worry, explained

To follow the debate, you need three terms.

Bitcoin is secured by **miners** — operators of specialized computers that race to add new blocks of transactions to the ledger, and in doing so make the network expensive to attack. They are paid in two ways: a **block reward** (newly created bitcoin) and **transaction fees** from users.

Roughly every four years, the protocol automatically **halves** the block reward. The reward dropped to 3.125 bitcoin per block at the April 2024 halving, down from 6.25, and it will keep falling until new issuance ends around the year 2140. The fear: as the reward shrinks toward zero, miners will need transaction fees to make up the difference — and if fees fall short, some miners switch off, reducing the computing power (**hashrate**) that protects the network.

## Fidelity's case

Gray's report makes three linked arguments, per Cointelegraph.

First, **a rising bitcoin price has more than offset the shrinking reward.** Average daily miner revenue has grown from roughly **$26,300** in Bitcoin's first halving era to more than **$40.2 million** today — because even as the number of coins per block falls, each coin has been worth far more.

Second, **the network's computing power has climbed through every halving, not collapsed.** Despite short dips after past halvings, total hashrate has risen enormously over Bitcoin's history, and no halving has led to a successful attack.

Third, **transaction fees are maturing into a real revenue source** — the part of miner income meant to eventually replace block rewards. Built into the design is a safety valve: a **difficulty adjustment** that automatically makes mining easier when miners leave, keeping the chain running rather than seizing up.

## The counter-pressure

The report lands against a real-world strain. Bitcoin's price has slid through 2026, squeezing miners, and many large public miners have been diverting machines and capital toward **artificial-intelligence data centers**, where returns currently look better. Cointelegraph noted the report acknowledges this pressure, citing a VanEck estimate that miners could need up to **$50 billion** to fund that AI pivot. Whether the shift is a temporary reallocation or a longer-term drain on Bitcoin's security is exactly the point in dispute.

## Why it matters — and how to read it

The security question underpins Bitcoin's pitch as "digital gold," a long-term store of value. Gold's worth rests partly on how costly it is to dig up; Bitcoin's analog is the computing cost of defending its ledger. If that cost holds or grows, the store-of-value case firms up; if it erodes, the thesis needs a new leg.

One caveat belongs up front: this is Fidelity's analysis, and Fidelity is not a neutral party — it runs bitcoin investment products, including a spot ETF. The report is one research team's argument, not an independent audit or an industry consensus, and the hardest part of the question — what miner economics look like decades from now, when block rewards are tiny — rests on assumptions that genuinely divide economists and cryptographers. What the data do show is that, through the halvings to date, the network has only gotten harder to attack.

## Sources

- [Fidelity rebuts claims Bitcoin security declines after halvings](https://cointelegraph.com/news/fidelity-bitcoin-long-term-security-halvings-report)