Today, Wyoming-based Mummolin, Inc. announced the successful completion of a $6.2 million seed funding round, led by Jack Dorsey, which also features notable investors such as Accomplice, Barefoot bitcoin Fund, MoonKite, NewLayer Capital and bitcoin Opportunity Fund. among others. This funding will boost the launch of OCEANa new initiative that aims to decentralize bitcoin mining on a global scale, according to a press release sent to bitcoin Magazine.
“OCEAN is solving a problem for Bitcoiners that I think all of us feel: greater centralization of mining pools could affect bitcoin, and how that puts at risk a lot of bitcoin attributes that we hold dear,” said Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter. and CEO of Block, Inc. “When I see a project that is good for bitcoin overall, and that is also good for me and my companies personally, it becomes a simple decision for me and I am happy to be a part of it.” .
The OCEAN pool distinguishes itself as the first transparent, non-custodial platform where miners receive block rewards directly from the coinbase transaction, eliminating the risk associated with traditional pools that withhold payments to individual miners. “Traditional bitcoin mining pools take sole custody of block rewards and transaction fees before dividing them among miners. This gives individual miners the ability to withhold payment, either by their own choice or by legal requirement. OCEAN’s non-custodial payments directly to miners from the block reward eliminate this risk and the pool’s undue influence on miners,” added Mummolin co-founder and president Mark Artymko.
“The role of mining pools must change for bitcoin to exist as a truly decentralized currency,” said Luke Dashjr, bitcoin Core developer and long-time co-founder of Mummolin. “OCEAN is a new type of pool that allows miners to be real miners again. We launched as the most transparent pool and also the only non-custodial pool where miners receive new block rewards directly from bitcoin.”
When asked about bitcoin Magazine Regarding what problems in the mining industry today the OCEAN team is motivated to solve, three main areas of focus were presented:
Centralization of the construction of block templates. “While hashrate may be distributed globally, the reality is that the smart parts of mining (running a full node, getting transactions, building the block template) are done by very few people and the groups they control,” said the global director. from OCEAN. of Sales, bitcoin Mechanic. “This is a disproportionate level of influence from too few over too many and has the potential to harm bitcoin.” After launch, OCEAN will introduce a way for miners to independently perform block template construction while also reaping the economic benefits of being in a pool.
Custody. “Today, most pools use a payment scheme called Full Payment Per Share. In FPPS, pools pay miners from their internal treasuries based on the work miners perform for the pools. In turn, when a block is found, bitcoin pays directly to the pool. In this way, the pool becomes the de facto custodian of the funds and sits between the miners and bitcoin, like a large bitcoin bank account,” explained Jason Hughes, Vice President of Development and Engineering. “This introduces significant counterparty risk for miners, similar to holding bitcoin on an exchange.” OCEAN is non-custodial, and when miners use OCEAN, they get paid directly from the bitcoin network in the coinbase transaction.
Transparency. “Most pools do not provide miners with visibility into the underlying transactions to which they commit their hashrate. This opacity creates a scenario of zero checks and balances where pools can do whatever they want without having to answer to their miners until the blocks are mined,” Dashjr said. “In contrast, OCEAN takes a transparency-first approach by publicly disclosing all transactions included in our block templates to miners before mining. This exposure is a self-audit and creates a natural incentive for OCEAN to always act in good faith. “We give miners greater insight into block construction so they can choose where to direct their hashrate.”
As OCEAN aims to revolutionize bitcoin mining, it anticipates implementing additional phases of bitcoin decentralization improvements and upgrades in 2024. For more information, you can visit its website at OCEAN.xyz.
