In this week’s news roundup, Will, Colin, and Matt break down how Babylon Chain’s launch pumped Bitcoin transactions fees to multi-month highs. Plus, they discuss Bitfarms’ merger with Stronghold and what it means for Riot’s hostile takeover attempt, and they wrap up the pod by covering Q2 numbers from the public miners – oh, and a note on the IMF’s absurd plea to tax bitcoin miners into oblivion.  Welcome back to The Mining Pod! On Thursday, Bitcoin transaction fees soared to their highest levels since April, but it has nothing to do with runes or inscriptions. This go around, it was all thanks to the launch of Babylon Chain, a new off-chain BTC staking platform.  We also tackle Bitfarms’ merger with Stronghold and what it could mean (or not mean) for Riot’s ongoing attempt at a hostile share takeover of Bitfarms. Finally, we close on the latest Q2 figures and operational updates from public bitcoin miners, and Colin rants about why the IMF needs to take their bitcoin miner tax proposal and shove it...someplace where it won’t see the light of day.   Timestamps: 00:00 Start 02:33 Difficulty report 04:45 ASIC prices 12:13 Babylon staking 15:51 Bitfarms Expands with $175M Stronghold Merger 16:47 Riot vs Bitfarms Poison Pill 25:30 Public Miner Reports 32:19 IMF Idea to Tax Bitcoin Miners Published twice weekly, "The Mining Pod" interviews the best builders and operators in the Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining landscape. Subscribe to get notifications when we publish interviews on Tuesday and a news show on Friday!  👉 Check out Bitcoin Season 2 and The Gwart Show. 👉 Watch our newest documentary, The Big Empty! Follow our hosts on Twitter: @wsfoxley, @cbspears, @AsILayHodling, @MatthewKimmell - Thank you to our sponsor, CleanSpark, America’s Bitcoin miner! And thank you to Foreman Mining, Master Your Mining! - "The Mining Pod" is produced by Sunnyside Honey LLC with Senior Producer, Damien Somerset. Distributed by CoinDesk. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.