Mining has change into a closely centralized business, not essentially as a result of possession of precise mining {hardware} being concentrated, however due to the central dependency on massive mining swimming pools to really coordinate with different miners. This presents an issue on a number of fronts. Swimming pools custodying miners funds offers them the power to withhold funds and coerce precise miners to behave or act a sure manner. The 2 largest swimming pools require KYC info earlier than permitting somebody to mine with them. Massive swimming pools can actively censor transactions in the event that they select, or have been mandated to by governments, utilizing the hashrate of their prospects.
Swimming pools are a crucial piece of the Bitcoin community, as with out them the one possibility is solo mining. This implies very rare and random payouts which can be extremely unpredictable and make planning a excessive capital enterprise very dangerous. We’d like them, in a single kind or the opposite, however the present kind swimming pools are taking current a rising systemic threat to the success of Bitcoin. They’re beginning to current threats to the core property that makes Bitcoin such a invaluable and fascinating system within the first place: it is censorship resistance.
Ocean introduced their launch at present as the primary mining pool to comprehensively tackle these rising and worrisome tendencies within the house. It is time to repair Bitcoin mining.
