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GoMining CEO Mark Zalan on GoBTC Pay, 0.2% merchant fees, mining as payments infrastructure and why Bitcoin still loses the checkout to stablecoins.
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GoMining, a Bitcoin miner running roughly 15 EH/s and claiming more than five million users, has launched GoBTC Pay, a Layer 1 payment protocol that charges merchants 0.2% and splits that fee evenly between the wallet that brought the customer and the miners that confirm the transaction.
The merchant pitch is genuine against cards, where the United States average credit card interchange rate sits at about 2.35%, and considerably weaker against Square, which auto enabled native Bitcoin acceptance for millions of United States sellers in March 2026 at zero processing fees through 2026.
The product delivers instant authorization, not instant settlement. GoMining targets an average on chain settlement of about twelve hours using its own Stratum V2 mempool, which means GoMining, not the merchant, carries the exposure in between.
CEO Mark Zalan argues that payments make mining more valuable because transaction activity becomes a larger share of miner economics. The current data points the other way. Transaction fees fell to 0.69% of Bitcoin miner revenue in August 2026, a ten year low, after bottoming at 0.52% in April.
The arithmetic is unforgiving. Half of a 0.2% fee on a five dollar coffee pays miners half a cent, while replacing today's block subsidy at Bitcoin's throughput ceiling would require roughly sixty six dollars per transaction.
The unmentioned constraint is tax. In the United States there is still no de minimis exemption for spending Bitcoin, and the emerging consensus in Congress would grant that relief to payment stablecoins while excluding Bitcoin.
What to watch: the merchant count past the initial cohort of ten, whether any named wallet actually ships the protocol, and whether settlement holds at twelve hours once volume arrives.
What is GoBTC Pay? GoBTC Pay is a Layer 1 Bitcoin payment protocol built by the mining company GoMining. It gives merchants instant authorization at checkout while the transaction settles on the Bitcoin base layer afterwards, using GoMining's own Stratum V2 mempool and mining pool to prioritise the transaction. Merchants pay 0.2% and customers pay nothing.
How much does GoBTC Pay cost a merchant? 0.2% of the transaction. Half of that goes to the wallet or financial institution that brought the customer into the network and half goes to the miners in GoMining's pool that process the settlement.
Is GoBTC Pay actually instant? The authorization is instant. Settlement is not. GoMining targets an average on chain settlement of about twelve hours by the end of 2026, which means the merchant is relying on GoMining's guarantee in the interval.
How does 0.2% compare with credit card fees? The United States average credit card interchange rate was about 2.35% in 2024, and blended in person processing costs run near 1.87% on a hundred dollar sale once assessments and processor markup are included. A proposed Visa and Mastercard settlement would cap standard consumer credit interchange at 1.25%. Against Square's native Bitcoin acceptance, which is free to sellers through 2026, GoBTC Pay is more expensive.
Is GoMining really a top ten Bitcoin miner? GoMining reports roughly 15 EH/s. Against publicly disclosed miners in August 2026 that places it tenth, between Core Scientific at 15.70 EH/s and Keel Infrastructure at 14.80 EH/s, and at about 1.7% of a network running at 883.3 EH/s. Large private operators do not disclose, so the global ranking cannot be independently verified.
Do I owe tax when I spend Bitcoin? In the United States, yes. The IRS treats Bitcoin as property, so spending it is a disposal that must be reported, and as of the 2026 tax year there is no de minimis exemption for small transactions. Proposals from Senator Lummis and others would create one, and the drafts moving furthest have limited relief to payment stablecoins. This is general information and not tax advice.
Why are Bitcoin transaction fees so low right now? Because demand for block space is weak. The daily average fee was about thirty six cents in early August 2026, and transaction fees made up only 0.69% of total miner revenue, a ten year low. Low fees are a symptom of low usage rather than a sign that Bitcoin has solved payments.
