Block CEO Jack Dorsey leads $6.2 million investment round in decentralized Bitcoin mining pool

Today, Wyoming-based Mummolin, Inc announced that it has successfully completed a $6.2 million seed funding round led by Jack Dorsey, including high-profile investors such as Accomplice, Barefoot Bitcoin Fund, MoonKite, NewLayer Capital, and Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. also participated. Among them. According to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine, these funds will fuel the launch of OCEAN, a new initiative aimed at decentralizing Bitcoin mining globally.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said, “OCEAN addresses the concerns we all feel as Bitcoin users, including the centralization of mining pools that could plague Bitcoin and how this puts the Bitcoin properties we cherish at risk. “We are solving the problem,” he said. He is the CEO of Block, Inc. “When I see a project that is good for Bitcoin broadly, and a project that is good for me and my company personally, it was a simple decision for me, and I’m happy to be a part of it.”

OCEAN Pool distinguishes itself as the first transparent, non-custodial platform where miners receive block rewards directly from Coinbase transactions, eliminating the risks associated with traditional pools that withhold payments from individual miners. “Traditional Bitcoin mining pools exclusively manage block rewards and transaction fees before distributing them to miners. This allows them to withhold payments from individual miners based on their own choice or legal requirements. OCEAN’s non-custodial payouts from block rewards directly to miners eliminate this risk and eliminate undue influence by pools over miners,” added Mark Artymko, co-founder and president of Mummolin.

“For Bitcoin to exist as a truly decentralized currency, the role of mining pools must change,” said Luke Dashjr, long-time Bitcoin core developer and Mummolin co-founder. “OCEAN is a new type of pool that allows miners to become real miners again. We will launch as the most transparent pool and the only non-custodial pool where miners receive new block rewards directly in Bitcoin.”

When asked a question Bitcoin Magazine Three key areas of focus were laid out for what challenges the OCEAN team is motivated to solve in today’s mining industry.

Centralization of block template configuration. “Hashrates may be globally distributed, but the reality is that the intelligent part of mining (running full nodes, sourcing transactions, constructing block templates) is performed by a very small number of individuals and the pools they control,” said OCEAN’s global head. “It is,” he said. Sales representative, Bitcoin mechanic. “This is a disproportionate level of influence from too little rather than too much and has the potential to be detrimental to Bitcoin.” After launch, OCEAN plans to introduce a way for miners to independently perform block template construction while still reaping the economic benefits of being in the pool.

concierge. “Most pools today use a payment method called full pay per share. In FPPS, pools pay miners from their internal vaults based on the work they perform for the pool. As a result, when a block is found, Bitcoin pays directly to the pool. In this way, the pool effectively becomes a custodian of the funds and sits between miners and Bitcoin like a large Bitcoin bank account,” explained Jason Hughes, Vice President of Development and Engineering. “This creates significant counterparty risk for miners, similar to storing Bitcoin on an exchange.” OCEAN is non-custodial and when miners use OCEAN, they receive payment directly from the Bitcoin network in Coinbase transactions.

transparency. “Most pools do not provide miners with visibility into the underlying transactions that commit the hashrate. This opacity creates a zero checks and balances scenario where the pool can do what it wants without having to answer to miners until the block is mined,” Dashjr said. “OCEAN, on the other hand, takes a transparency-first approach by making all transactions included in the block template publicly available to miners prior to mining. This exposure is self-auditing and creates a natural incentive for OCEAN to always act in good faith. “We provide miners with more knowledge about block composition so they can choose where to send their hashrate.”

OCEAN expects to release additional phases of Bitcoin decentralization improvements and upgrades in 2024, with the goal of bringing innovation to Bitcoin mining. For more information, please visit the OCEAN.xyz website.