"Raw statistics"... lol. @mempool's "Avg Block Fees" isn't even a useful statistic at all, and neither is "Health". I wish they'd stop being stupid with both. For one, it's an average of percentages, not Bitcoin txn fees mined. And the percentage is based on what their node instantaneously is aware of when a block is mined, which is impossible for any pool to beat without out of band txns (like MARA). Case and point: I could mine an OCEAN DATUM block with 100 BTC of txn fees in it, and it would _still_ show the pool in the negative because it's not in any way whatsoever a measure of profitability, censorship, or anything remotely relevant at all for that matter. It's a bullshit stat. The "profitability" nonsense is easily debunked by looking at OCEAN's actual blocks, payout txns, and rewards at the per-miner level... all verifiable and transparent. The "censorship" stuff is bullshit as well. Case and point: If you include a block full of garbage that @mempool doesn't know about (4MB JPGs are an example), those displace all txns @mempool knows about, effectively "censoring" all the txns that "should" have made it into the next block.... but the stupid "Health" metric? 100%. lol. The "Health" is partly a measure of how different a block is from what @mempool expects, and partly complete nonsense because of exceptions like the above. And to be clear, displacing a txn is NOT censorship. Miners can mine what they want to mine within the consensus rules that everyone agrees to when they join the network. There is no requirement to mine any specific txn. Best example: I can choose to mine only txns that pay at least say, 100 sats/vB. I might not even turn on my miners unless there's a block reward high enough to justify it. Am I "censoring" txns? Of course not. I could go on a massive rant about these pointless metrics, but suffice it to say, the REAL numbers speak for themselves: more BTC in miners' wallets when mining on OCEAN vs FPPS pools.

OCEAN earns SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 Attestations The reports reinforce OCEAN’s commitment to transparent, dependable Bitcoin mining through independent examination of control design and operating effectiveness of OCEAN’s internal systems over the reporting periods. Link to the release:

Probably THE best decision Ocean has made thus far. You know that line from The Avengers where Agent Hill asks Stark when he became an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics and Tony answers, "last night"? That's Jason. Mr. Versatile 💘

When we started OCEAN, even before we picked OCEAN as a pool name, Jason was THE guy we knew we couldn't build it without. He has been instrumental in so many ways. Writing TIDES, writing DATUM, even picking the acronyms for both. When hurricane Helene briefly interrupted the back end in the early days, Jason was literally outside with a chainsaw chopping down trees so he could get out and physically fix the problem. And during that same hurricane, after he got OCEAN back up and running, he flew food and medical supplies in his personal plane to people who needed help. He is a remarkable human being. You will find few people more genuine than Jason. Truly a blessing to work alongside him. I am stoked for the future of OCEAN. Jason has many new tricks and innovations up his sleeve that the Bitcoin community will come to love and rely on in the years to come. Our future is very bright with Jason leading our technology.

OCEAN has promoted Jason Hughes (@wk057) to Chief Technology Officer. Jason has spent nearly fifteen years writing software that Bitcoin miners depend on. At OCEAN, he wrote much of what makes this company worth choosing. He developed TIDES, our transparent and auditable reward system, and architected and built DATUM, which lets pooled miners construct block templates using their own Bitcoin nodes. OCEAN’s commitment to giving miners more control rests on engineering that Jason delivered. He came to that work with years of experience running Eligius, one of Bitcoin’s earliest major mining pools. After taking over its operation in 2012, he developed and maintained much of the software behind it while also operating a mining farm of his own. He understood the problems miners faced because they were his problems, too. Tesla got its own introduction to Jason’s abilities once. An investigation that began with his dissatisfaction with the car’s infotainment system eventually uncovered vulnerabilities reaching its worldwide vehicle fleet. During a demonstration for Tesla, he remotely moved a car in California from North Carolina after being given its VIN. He helped the company address the vulnerabilities and earned what was then its largest-ever bug bounty. We’d put Jason’s engineering record alongside anyone’s in Bitcoin. Having him lead OCEAN’s technology operations is an asset that will help us realize our mission of decentralization. Congratulations, Jason. Continually stoked to have you here. 🌊

Giacomo Zucco (@giacomozucco) has rejoined OCEAN’s Board of Directors. Giacomo has been part of OCEAN since the beginning, but his history with Bitcoin goes back much further. Since 2013, he has made a career out of pulling Bitcoin apart, explaining why it matters, and building the ecosystem around it. He has helped develop and advance open technical standards including BOLT, OpenTimestamps, RGB, and BDK; taught Bitcoin everywhere from university programs to Lugano’s Summer School and Cubo+; and advised major financial and infrastructure companies trying to understand what Bitcoin means for their businesses. Today, he leads Bitcoin education as VP of the Plan ₿ Foundation in Lugano and CEO of Plan ₿ Network, while continuing to invest in and advise Bitcoin companies across the ecosystem. He’s also a physicist and honorary consul. Because, as with Bitcoiners, of course he is. Giacomo has spent more than a decade approaching Bitcoin from just about every direction possible. He asks hard questions, holds strong views, and cares deeply about keeping Bitcoin decentralized, permissionless, and resistant to capture. This perspective has been part of OCEAN’s DNA from the start. We’re glad to have it back around the table. Welcome back, Giacomo. 🌊

⚡⚡ Lightning payouts are back at OCEAN. ⚡⚡ Lightning was paused over the last month due to incompatibility with the chain split. Now that this has been resolved, payments have resumed. What this means for you: • Accumulated Rewards: If you were previously set up for Lightning payouts, your accumulated rewards will be processed in upcoming batches through normal channels. If your rewards reach the natural threshold, they will be paid out on-chain. • Lower On-Chain Payout Threshold (Coming Soon): We’ve heard feedback from smaller miners that our on-chain threshold was too high. We are reducing that threshold from ~1 million sats to 500,000 sats to make frequent on-chain payouts easier for smaller miners who aren’t using Lightning. Note: This threshold change will take effect with an upcoming TIDES system update. Lightning is back, and a lower threshold is on the way. Keep building. 🚀

OCEAN's Board of Directors has elected Rapha Zagury (@RaphaZagury ) as a Director. Rapha is the CEO of Twenty One Capital (NYSE: XXI) and founder of Elektron Energy, one of the world's largest private Bitcoin miners. Before Bitcoin, he spent years in investment banking and capital markets at Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank. Rapha has been in OCEAN's corner since the early days, long before joining the board. He believed in what we were building when decentralized mining was a much harder sell, and supported us with hashrate from the start. As a miner, Rapha deals with the same things our customers do every day: power costs, uptime, payouts, and pool economics. That keeps OCEAN grounded in what miners actually need. Welcome to the Board, Rapha. 🌊

OCEAN's Board of Directors has elected Bob Burnett (@boomer_btc) as Chairman.   Bob has been part of OCEAN from the beginning. He served on our founding Board, was the first miner to put hashrate behind the pool, and found OCEAN's first-ever block.   He brings something particularly valuable for OCEAN's next chapter: experience building and leading technology businesses at scale.   Before founding Barefoot Mining in 2017, Bob spent over 30 years in technology-centric endeavors, including 13 years at Gateway, a Fortune 200 company, where he served as CTO and EVP of Products, led thousands of employees, managed a multi-billion-dollar business, and helped guide one of the defining companies of the PC revolution.   Today, Bob is the founder and CEO of Barefoot Mining and has spent years working toward the same thing that brought OCEAN together in the first place: a more decentralized and resilient Bitcoin mining network.   He knows OCEAN. He knows mining. He knows what it takes to build a technology company for the long term.   We're proud to have Bob Burnett serve as Chairman as OCEAN enters its next chapter. 🌊

OCEAN and Luke Dashjr announce today that, by mutual agreement, Luke Dashjr has separated from OCEAN, resigning as Chairman, Chief Technology Officer, and director. Link to the joint statement press release here:

Update on BIP110 reimbursements: The rebate we previously announced has now been paid at the best FPPS rate for the affected period. Transaction ID: 1f83d838b17b43b5504aa7823d6e89cf662ff0d261f4326041f741c9294d17eb Followup on BIP110 endpoint announcement: A clarification seems necessary about the announcement above, which some interpreted as the disclosure of some novel issue with hashrate distribution among the two competing chains during the recent BIP110 controversy and chain-split. It's not. The post is just a direct follow-up to the decision taken and publicly announced more than one month ago, about giving the few non-DATUM hashers (who still prefer to delegate block template creation to the pool operator, rather than taking control of it themselves, 4% of OCEAN’s hashrate) the same choice over BIP110 signaling as the DATUM miners (96% of OCEAN hashrate): In that context, a choice was made to set the default Stratum endpoint to "pro-BIP". To be clear, this was not a statement of company advocacy for BIP110. At the time the decision was made, we were regularly hitting periods where more than 50% of OCEAN’s hashrate was actively signalling for BIP110, and we were fielding direct calls from customers telling us they were pro-BIP110 and asking how to signal. Setting the default accordingly was our attempt to have the endpoint at least resemble the expressed wishes of our own users at that moment. This choice of defaults was contested and somewhat controversial, but the main focus of the company was in giving all users a choice (which DATUM-wise was not a minor technical feat: some claimed it would have been impossible), and we were hopeful the number of users actually affected by the default would be minimal (even relative to the already small number of non-DATUM hashers). The way BIP110 unfolded confirmed this default choice as unfortunate, and the fact that some hashrate kept coming to that default endpoint, even after the BIP110 chain stalled out, seemed to corroborate that some hashers may have kept pointing to it due to a lack of information. That is why we processed the rebate above (some users who intentionally directed hashrate to the stalled chain may have also benefited from this, but our priority was to protect the uninformed ones).

Update for OCEAN miners: We want to clarify yesterday’s activity around the BIP-110 and non-BIP-110 mining options. For roughly 18 hours, some miners using OCEAN’s Stratum templates may have believed they were mining on the non-BIP-110 chain while their hashrate was directed to the BIP-110 chain. To eliminate any possibility that miners were disadvantaged, OCEAN will make a direct Bitcoin rebate payment to affected miners based on the rewards they would have earned on the non-BIP-110 chain during that window. Approximately 0.3 BTC will be distributed, with payments completed within the next 72 hours. We’ll publish the transaction details once the payments are sent. The default endpoint is now back on the non-BIP-110 chain. Both options remain available so every miner can choose where to direct their hashrate. Your hash. Your choice. 🌊

Update for OCEAN miners: Effective 9:00 AM EDT, the default OCEAN stratum endpoint will return to the non-BIP110 chain. Miners on the default endpoint need no action. Both websites remain live: Non-BIP110: BIP110: OCEAN miners have found blocks on both chains since the fork. Every client chooses where their hashrate goes, and that freedom is the bedrock of sovereignty and decentralization. Your hash. Your choice. 🌊

It’s been a really tumultuous few weeks for all of us. I continue to feel for everyone impacted by the Cold Card situation and now the BTCPay Server attack (@r0ckstardev I’m praying for you and everyone there). And to address the elephant in the room, the network has passed block height 961632 and we have two chains. No ideal by any means but here we are. What I am happy about is that the Ocean team has delivered what it said it would - a path for its clients to pick one chain or the other. At this point, slightly over half of Ocean clients’ hash rate is directed at the BIP-110 side but each client is making their own decision with almost all of them doing so through the use of DATUM. And, Ocean clients have mined blocks on each side. I point this out because I know there was a great deal of speculation as to whether Ocean would really give their clients this choice. I hope this is put to rest now. For the record BarefootMining has been mining on the non-signaling side. I know some are disappointed by this and others have applauded it. In the end, I made the decision that I believe is best for my company, my investors, and for Bitcoin. Contrary to what most people probably think, Ocean’s board and management team have been supportive of a two-pool solution for quite some time. The team delivered that and the infrastructure is live and available to all. If you are miner, or just someone who wants to observe what is happening in either pool, you can find information here: BIP-110: Non-BIP-110: Bottom line: This isn’t about telling miners which decision to make. It’s about refusing to make that decision for them. Ocean fulfilled that promise. Your hash. Your choice. P.S. I highly recommend disconnecting from all the chaos for a few days. Get some sleep then tomorrow touch some grass and feel the sun on your face. P.S.S. If you have questions or concerns, my DMs are open and I’ll do all I can to respond promptly. 🌊💪

It wasn't me. Although this is kind of hilarious. Not only does it embed contiguous arbitrary data in a BIP-110 compatible txn, it exploits a default policy delta where Knots is *more* permissive than Core to get the txn mined by a Knots miner only. Genius proof of concept. 🫡

Since we're about 48 hrs away from the BIP-110 "mandatory" signaling height, I wanted to quickly share my private node crawler stats. Over the past several weeks, I gave a program of mine more spending power than is probably reasonable. It spent a not insignificant amount of BTC deduplicating nodes. Enjoy. Raw node counts (% of total) 🔵 Total: 131,762 ⚫️ Bitcoin Core: 99,401 (75.4%) ⚫️ Bitcoin Knots: 30,755 (23.3%) ⚫️ Other: 1,606 (1.2%) Raw BIP-110 signaling counts (% of total) 🔸 Bitcoin Core: 17 (0.01%) 🔸 Bitcoin Knots: 19,388 (14.7%) 🔸 Other: 0 (Unknown) 🔹 Total: 19,405 (14.7%) Nodes found to be duplicates (% of version) 🔴 Bitcoin Core: 17,892 (17.8%) 🔴 Bitcoin Knots: 18,049 (58.7%) 🔴 Other: Unknown 🔴 Total duplicates: 35,941 (27.2% of total) Deduplicated node counts (% of unique) 🟢 Bitcoin Core: 81,672 (85.1%) 🟢 Bitcoin Knots: 12,706 (9.6%) 🟢 Other: 1,606 (1.7%) 🟢 Total unique: 95,984 (72.8% of total) Of the 19,388 Bitcoin Knots BIP-110 nodes discovered signaling for BIP-110, 71% of them were eliminated as duplicates, above average for the Knots nodes, leaving only 5,663 BIP-110 signaling nodes. That puts non-duplicate BIP-110 signaling nodes at 5.9% of non-duplicate nodes. My criteria for deduplication includes the basics (same IP) and some additional more advanced sleuthing of available data. Additionally, you may have already surmised from my intro that part of it also involves strategically sending real transactions. Will keep the exact details private so that it can't be easily gamed in the future. It is impossible to find ALL duplicate nodes, however false positives are somewhat unlikely with my methodology. If my software has flagged a group of nodes as duplicate, there's an extremely high probability that its either the exact same node (with multiple IPs) or in the exact same location. If a node wasn't able to be tested thoroughly enough to be confident for whatever reason, and isn't deemed duplicate by conventional means (same IP, for example) then it isn't considered a duplicate and gives it the benefit of the doubt. If I get more time, I may start publishing some more detailed stats more regularly, since it seems my crawler successfully finds a large amount of nodes beyond those listed every public crawler. Unfortunately it's not cheap to handle the deduplication aspect, so will need to figure out how feasible that is to continue. It also involves operating from dozens of IPs to get connected to a supermajority of the network, which is pretty bandwidth intense. Anyway, figured I'd share, since I don't think anyone is actually doing this at all at this level. There's a lot more to this, too. Some of it might scare privacy conscious people... so I'll probably keep my publicly shared info limited to node stats.

It's all the difference. Segwit spent quite some time... over two years... developing, debating, refining, testing, educating, and finally fully deploying activation-ready clients and reaching ~80% of the nodes by the time BIP148 was even proposed. BIP110 has, by my own crawler and dedupe estimates, about 6% of unique nodes at best. It's both attempting a MASF and UASF with a super-minority on both. That's not comparable to segwit's supermajority of enforcement-ready nodes, and already-near simple-majority hashrate by the time BIP148 was proposed.

*doesn't read the post**walks in* "Strawman!" "Condescending!" "Hysterical!" *posts some irrelevant information unrelated to the content* *walks out* 🤷‍♂️ I welcome discussion on the merits of anything in my post. If there's anything actually incorrect, I'm happy to post a correction. Simply hand waving it away as if it's nonsense is kind of pointless, and a bit revealing.