Jack Dorsey Leads $6.2 Million Seed Funding for OCEAN Bitcoin Mining Pool

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.

“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 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.