Bitcoin miners play a critical role in the bitcoin ecosystem by processing and securing payments. They’re rewarded for their efforts by a combination of newly issued bitcoin and transaction fees. The analysis below explores the incentive structures underlying mining efforts and looks at the potential effects of an increased block size limit on miner’s willingness to participate in the network. Based on 2015 data, there are nine miners and/or pools that comprise roughly 75% of the mining capacity in the network. For context, in 2014 there were ten participants responsible for 75% of the mining capacity. The chart below illustrates the market share for the largest miners in 2015.

https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-3-miner-incentives