Luke Dashjr exits mining pool Ocean after split over Bitcoin mining’s future

Longtime Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr has left mining pool Ocean, resigning as chairman, chief technology officer and director, with parent company Mummolin repurchasing his entire equity stake.

The two sides said the separation was by mutual agreement, reflecting differing views on the future of bitcoin mining and citing recent protocol developments. They did not disclose the value of the equity buyback.

Dashjr, who co-founded Ocean, will launch a new mining venture called Convoy. Ocean said it will continue operating its transparent, non-custodial pool, which pays mining rewards directly to participating miners.

The split comes weeks after Dashjr took a sabbatical from Ocean following the failure of BIP-110, a controversial attempt to restrict the storage of non-financial data on Bitcoin temporarily.

The departure lands in a mining market that is concentrated and under strain. Publicly traded miners have been cutting Bitcoin hashrate and leasing sites and power to AI and high-performance computing. Still, Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool produce well over half of recent blocks.