Longtime Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr has resigned as chairman, chief technology officer and director of Ocean mining pool, ending his involvement with the company after its parent, Mummolin, repurchased his entire equity stake.
The separation was agreed by both sides and reflects differing views on the future of Bitcoin mining and recent protocol developments. Mummolin and Dashjr did not disclose the value of the equity buyback.
Luke Dashjr to launch Convoy mining venture
Dashjr, who co-founded Ocean, plans to launch a new Bitcoin mining venture called Convoy. Ocean said it will continue operating its transparent, non-custodial mining pool, which pays rewards directly to participating miners.
The split comes weeks after Dashjr began a sabbatical from Ocean following the failure of BIP-110, a controversial proposal that sought to temporarily restrict the storage of non-financial data on the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin mining market faces pressure
Dashjr’s departure comes as the Bitcoin mining industry remains concentrated and under financial pressure. Publicly traded mining companies have been reducing their Bitcoin hashrate while leasing sites and power capacity to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing operations.
Despite those shifts, Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool continue to produce well over half of recent Bitcoin blocks.
