Oddbean new post about login | logout Interesting! 1. Can we get a side-by-side listing of trade-offs DATUM compared to StratumV2? I’d like to know more about what the differences are in more detail, and what led to the decision to really create something new instead of building off V2. 2. Are there any other specific aspects of mining centralization that DATUM still leaves unresolved? Where are there still decentralization risks theoretically assuming if this is largely adopted over the next 3-5yrs? Curious to know what Ocean thinks looking forward on this. 3. Are there plans for Ocean to push / advocate for knots? Or is that not the scope of the business plan? Knots could use some marketing / documentation help, maybe there’s an opportunity to do this with Ocean’s efforts. If knots has real advantages over core, this has not been well communicated. Convince more people why knots is better, why doe is advance the decentralization ethos over core, broaden the dev resources & interest in the project, etc…Ocean might be able to help. 4. What are the payout changes/fees etc.. that Ocean pool can set expectations for? Assume this will change as you’re still in bootstrap-mode, so it would be good to really be transparent to what those fee/changes may be in the future (if any). Don’t make people think this is a bait-switch tactic! Looking forward to seeing how this plays out in the market, exciting stuff! It’s great that Ocean is really taking this mining pool centralization seriously and taking steps to deliver real alternatives with real incentives. And thank you to Jack and others with the funding support to make this a reality. Great work by the team!
Core actively denies miners control of their block creation, and tries to impose a centrally dictated policy. So Knots is de facto required for decentralized mining.
Centralized pools that mislead people into believing they are decentralized only take focus away from real solutions. Without a decentralized mining pool, Bitcoin is highly susceptible to attack. https://image.nostr.build/4915ddb4ead98baa93fd2152ed06cf82c201f756a8914fbab14b72f7f86b46a1.jpg A miner choosing the block template on behalf of the pool of miners does not help decentralization because the regulator will still shut down the operator if they don't like the blocks being built. https://image.nostr.build/33be5a542d08fdd77de7fa28e7ce8f43b914eab179bf650d5fdccaae4b929970.jpg Call me crazy but insert a Bitcoin miner who includes (or builds on a block containing) an OFAC tx and I don't see how the DOJ draws a different conclusion using their current logic. What am I missing? nostr:nevent1qqsxv0hzn03md4s3990rjkk78yl0dzwfzxhz8tng773g6lnkldlfvzsppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgs0m40g76hqmwqhhc9hrk3qfxxpsp5k3k9xgk24nsjf7v305u6xffcrqsqqqqqpswrdgp
Can nostr:nprofile1qqsq9k04vahllseell55m74n3047y88pzlr0z5yany32st29fapqmgsppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qgawaehxw309ahx7um5wghxy6t5vdhkjmn9wgh8xmmrd9skctc87ckyu mining pool operators unilaterally reject any template? Simple answer yes. - nostr:nprofile1qqs8fl79rnpsz5x00xmvkvtd8g2u7ve2k2dr3lkfadyy4v24r4k3s4sppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qg4waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxummnw3ezucn89ur9eu8h . https://image.nostr.build/ab64430c40242ff46ae0dc0fec977da82ae54489db3dbb0b209d2804108b9db7.jpg
Hot take: A control authority constricting a block template and constructing your own block template that must be approved by the control authority is the same thing. https://video.nostr.build/6d61a4242934b1c43fd37e4eb98824d52a87ecc45f24f57a36575f76a53c9e12.mp4 It seems almost inevitable they will eventually claim that building a block on a blacklisted UTXO is illegal. All transactions must be approved by the Ocean Control Authority. They're still censoring BIP 47 stealth addressing and were whirlpool too. It's not just a matter of ordinals txs (spam) https://image.nostr.build/768ecb72ca40d6883788b8e21faf4e02598b48afc39546294ce1eae054a340e8.jpg
Paul Sztorc on a response to a Bitcoin Magazine article about DATUM. The truth is: "1) Mining centralization isn't a real idea and it has never been defined or measured. The supplied measure "number of pools" is utterly meaningless as a single pool can pretend to be multiple pools, undetected. 2) Even if it were a real idea, it is best solved by making it as easy as possible to form a new pool, upon the censorship of too many txns. This *already* would happen naturally -- since censored txns would build up a huge pile of money available to anyone making a non-censored pool. (Note that neither Ocean nor any existing pool will do *this* good-thing-for-Bitcoin, since it is bad for their competitiveness and bottom line.) 3) DATUM and Sv2 are both useless in the same way: the pool can turn them on or off at any time. All Sv2/Datum do, is signal to a client that the pool is disagreeing with them. At this point, your only leverage is to leave the pool. But this is exactly the same leverage that you have today! (The best way to improve the small guy's leverage, by the way, is actually a largeblock drivechain which allows for smaller more frequent pool payouts.) 4) Sv2 and Datum both make a horrible mistake: they reduce **accountability**. For example, when you buy toothpaste or stay at a hotel, you do not democratically vote for how much flouride to put in the toothpaste, nor vote on how late the common areas should be open. A specialist CEO / hotel manager takes *responsibility* for the outcome, since you may not even know what you really want , or why. That is the role played by pools today. Sv2/Datum are terrible because they now allow pools to secretly join themselves with 0.001% pool hashrate and then submit censored blocks. Today this would be a scandal for the pool and people would leave -- it might even kill the pool. But under Sv2 the pool can hide behind the fake excuse "we are just doing what our customers want - this is good for decentralization. 5) In Bitcoin mining (even moreso than in toothpaste), there is an **objectively optimal** block. Everyone on earth should pick the same one -- the one paying the most $$. Everything else is Bad for transparency, bad for pool competition. (It is explicitly MEV, in fact.) But all this is expressly encoureged by DATUM. (!) 6) For what it's worth, the people who actually work on Sv2, have said that the Datum people have misunderstood Sv2, and are inept and failed to understand how to improve upon it. 7) None of the miners want Sv2 or Datum. None of them are interested, except as a PR stunt to pretend to be cooperative . Like the toothpaste example I've given, miners correctly understand that pools should specialize -- miners can keep the pool in line by threatening to leave. 8) The biggest problem for Bitcoin is adoption. If a rival coin out adopts Bitcoin, then BTC will go to $0 a coin and all the Sha256d miners will lose everything. We will be entirely at the mercy of this new coin -- and how "centralized" it's mining is (whatever that will mean). No offense, but this whole thing is a pretext for **ruining** proof of work, and instead inserting Karen-type "regulators" -- parasite middlemen who tell us how we can mine, and whether or not we are mining the "right" way. Pure bull**it. Developers have already harmed Bitcoin enormously with their lies and half-truths (such as that Lightning will work, or that Taproot is useful for anything). This has resulted in 10-year setbacks for BTC. If intellectual standards remain low, Bitcoin will continue to accumulate flaws and then die. A problem far worse than the one mentioned in the article below." The Article: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/aaron-oceans-datum-is-tackling-bitcoins-most-pressing-problem
