Bitcoin startup Mummolin, Inc, along with former Twitter/X (NASDAQ: TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey, raised USD$6.2 million in seed funding in support of OCEAN, which aims to give miners control over block rewards from the network.
The company said on Wednesday that the OCEAN pool stands out as the first transparent and non-custodial platform where miners directly receive block rewards from the coinbase transaction, eliminating the risk traditionally associated with pools that withhold payments from individual miners.
In a Bitcoin mining pool, operators collaborate to confirm network transactions and subsequently distribute any earned rewards among the miners, as said by Mark Artymko, co-founder and president of Mummolin. Traditional Bitcoin mining pools often function as centralized entities that hold the rewards received from the network and then disburse them to miners.
OCEAN made its announcement at the Future of Bitcoin Mining Conference, set against the backdrop of Barefoot Mining’s 150-year-old hydroelectric dam in rural South Carolina. This historic dam, now repurposed, has been utilized for large-scale Bitcoin mining by converting surplus energy. OCEAN anticipates rolling out further phases of Bitcoin decentralization enhancements and upgrades in 2024.
“This gives them the ability to withhold payment from individual miners, whether by their own choice or by legal requirement,” said Artymko.
“OCEAN’s non-custodial payouts directly to miners from the block reward remove this risk and the pool’s undue influence over miners.”
Dorsey is leading the funding round for Barefoot Mining, which is Ocean’s inaugural customer. The pool anticipates launching further phases of Bitcoin decentralization enhancements and upgrades in 2024.
Other strategic partners, including Accomplice, Barefoot Bitcoin Fund, MoonKite, NewLayer Capital, and the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, are also part of the funding.
🚀 Startup Mummolin secures $6.2 million in seed investment, spearheaded by Jack Dorsey, to develop the decentralized mining pool OCEAN, aiming to pay block rewards directly to miners, bypassing centralized entities. 💰 #Mummolin #OCEAN #JackDorsey #CryptoInvestment
— BitcoinWorld Media (@ItsBitcoinWorld) November 29, 2023
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Ocean is a response to censorship criticism
Ocean’s debut coincides with recent controversies surrounding certain legacy mining pools that have faced criticism for their censorship of specific transactions.
Many Bitcoin enthusiasts consider ‘censorship resistance’ to be a fundamental principle of the largest and original blockchain. F2Pool, the third-largest Bitcoin mining pool, sparked outrage on social media when reports suggested it might be censoring transactions from an address subject to U.S. government sanctions.
“OCEAN is solving a problem for Bitcoiners that I think all of us feel—further centralization of pools and mining pools that could plague Bitcoin, and how that risks a bunch of Bitcoin attributes that we hold dear,” said Dorsey.
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