OCEAN, a new decentralized Bitcoin mining pool, announced that it had raised $6.3 million in seed funding from various sources on Nov. 28. The seed funding round is notably led by Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Block Inc. and also a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter/X.
"OCEAN is solving a problem for Bitcoiners that I think all of us feel—further centralization of mining pools that could plague Bitcoin, and how that risks a bunch of Bitcoin attributes that we hold dear," said Jack Dorsey.
The OCEAM mining pool is the first non-custodial platform where miners receive block rewards directly from the coinbase transaction, eliminating the risk associated with traditional pools withholding payments from individual miners.
OCEAN is also aiming to solve several major problems facing bitcoin mining. The most significant one is the problem of centralization of block template construction.
“Even though hashrate may be distributed globally, the reality is that the intelligent parts of mining (running a full node, sourcing transactions, constructing the block template) are performed by very few individuals and the pools that they control,” said OCEAN's Global Head of Sales, Bitcoin Mechanic. “This is a disproportionate level of influence by too few over too many and has the potential to hurt Bitcoin.” After the launch, OCEAN will introduce a way for miners to independently perform block template construction while still reaping the economic benefits of being in a pool.
Bitcoin
Mining
