Episode 96: Mining Decentralization Update
Ep. 96

Episode 96: Mining Decentralization Update

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Episode description

In Bitcoin, Explained 96, Aaron and Sjors discuss some recent innovations in mining, and in particular mining decentralization. Specifically, they discuss the Stratum V2 and DATUM mining protocols to decentralize transaction selection in mining pools, the open source hardware Bitaxe miner, and some recent proposals to make decentralized mining pools like P2Pool more viable.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction and mining decentralization
00:06:48 Why mining centralization threatens censorship resistance
00:11:10 Stratum V2: miners choose transactions
00:14:18 DATUM and the limits of pool decentralization
00:20:14 Why predictable payouts favor large pools
00:23:26 Bitaxe: open source hobby mining
00:30:46 P2Pool: mining without a central operator
00:35:14 Reviving P2Pool: latency and payout challenges
00:39:13 Lightning swaps and ecash for mining payouts

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This episode’s sponsor: CoinKite, maker of the COLDCARD.

Aaron’s Nostr: ⁠npub1art8cs66ffvnqns5zs5qa9fwlctmusj5lj38j94lv0ulw0j54wjqhpm0w5⁠

Sjors’ Nostr: npub1v25jqj332n630klwtqeqxgyrjl4alw4phmluhu2x6lcxzwy9m03suqexw3

0:00Introduction and mining decentralization
6:48Why mining centralization threatens censorship resistance
11:10Stratum V2: miners choose transactions
14:18DATUM and the limits of pool decentralization
20:14Why predictable payouts favor large pools
23:26Bitaxe: open source hobby mining
30:46P2Pool: mining without a central operator
35:14Reviving P2Pool: latency and payout challenges
39:13Lightning swaps and ecash for mining payouts