Decentralized Bitcoin mining pool OCEAN raises over $6 million in seed funding
OCEAN, a new decentralized Bitcoin mining pool, announced on November 28 that it had raised $6.3 million in seed funding from various sources. The seed funding round is being led, among other things, by Block Inc. co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey. Co-founder and former CEO Twitter/X.
Dorsey said in a statement:
“Our contribution to OCEAN stems from a deep respect for their mission. OCEAN is solving a problem we all feel for Bitcoin users. That is, the centralization of pools and mining pools that can plague Bitcoin, and this is how it puts Bitcoin’s flock at risk. It’s an attribute we value.”
Other contributors to the seed round include Accomplice, Barefoot Bitcoin Fund, MoonKite, NewLayer Capital, and Bitcoin Opportunity Fund.
OCEAN is operated by Mummolin, Inc., a company that bills itself as the successor to the Eligius Bitcoin mining pool, which operated from 2011 to 2017. Luke Dashjr, who currently serves as co-founder of Mummolin Inc., also created Eligius. This was intended to provide a decentralized approach to Bitcoin mining.
OCEAN announced this news at its Future of Bitcoin Mining conference on November 28. Although the pool appears to be operational, the company said it will launch new decentralization improvements and upgrades in 2024.
A small number of decentralized mining pools exist.
Bitcoin mining pools allow individual miners to combine their computing resources and collectively compete against the large mining companies that dominate the practice.
Numerous Bitcoin mining pools exist, but not all of them use a reward structure that allows direct payments. Mark Artymko, co-founder and president of Mummolin, explained that traditional mining pools collect block rewards and transaction fees before distributing them to miners, introducing the possibility of payment holds.
In contrast, OCEAN relies on non-custodial payouts from block rewards sent directly to participating miners. OCEAN also offers several additional transparency features, details of which are detailed on its website.
OCEAN is leading this new direction, but it is not alone. Other schemes, such as Foundry USA Pool, use a non-custodial escrow process to pay out mining rewards. Proposals for federated mining pools, or “fedipools,” also exist.
