Mummolin, a Bitcoin startup, has raised $6.2 million in seed funding to support the launch of Ocean, a new decentralized bitcoin mining pool. The funding round was led by former Twitter CEO and Bitcoin advocate Jack Dorsey.
OCEAN mining pool seeks to shift power back to Bitcoin miners by enabling them to receive block rewards directly from the network, without the risks posed by centralized mining pools.
How OCEAN Differs from Traditional Mining Pools
In conventional Bitcoin mining pools, the pool operator takes custody of the rewards and distributes them to miners. This means the pool can potentially withhold payments or censor certain transactions.
“she thought it was the ocean…it’s just the pool” https://t.co/iGXrNNrhiZ
— jack (@jack) November 29, 2023
“Ocean’s non-custodial payouts directly to miners from the block reward remove this risk and the pool’s undue influence over miners,” Mummolin’s president Mark Artymko said in a press release.
Instead, Ocean will be the first fully decentralized Bitcoin mining pool, paying miners directly in a transparent manner. Miners on Ocean will get the new block reward straight from the Bitcoin network, without interference from any centralized entity.
“The role of mining pools must change for Bitcoin to exist as a truly decentralized currency,” long-time Bitcoin developer and Mummulin co-founder Luke Dashjr stated.
Support from Bitcoin and Web3 Leaders
In addition to Jack Dorsey’s lead investment, Ocean’s seed funding round included investments from several high-profile Bitcoin and Web3 funds such as Accomplice, Barefoot Bitcoin Fund, MoonKite, and NewLayer Capital.
The old code has already been updated and tested with support for the latest Bitcoin addresses and mining machines.
As was the case with Eligius, OCEAN is a non-custodial pool paying miners directly with generated coins, and it provides the highest level of transparency both in…
— Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) November 29, 2023
The decentralized mining pool has also received praise from leading industry experts.
“It’s a mining pool with more decentralization built into it at the foundation, which in my opinion is good for the Bitcoin network,” tweeted Lyn Alden, founder of investment advisory firm Lyn Alden Investment Strategy.
With its emphasis on miner transparency and decentralization, Ocean plans to embody the censorship resistance and peer-to-peer principles that many view as core Bitcoin values.
The launch of Ocean comes at a time when censorship by large mining pools has caused controversy. Most recently, F2Pool faced backlash for allegedly censoring transactions from a sanctioned address.
As a new entry into the Bitcoin mining pool scene, Ocean will be closely watched by industry observers to evaluate if its model of direct payouts and non-custodial structure can effectively shift influence away from centralized intermediaries and back towards empowering individual miners through enhanced transparency and decentralization.
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