Let’s try to collect some thoughts on the way toward to decentralize mining.

I outlined a few thoughts here:

So we’ll try to cover each of these in turn and outline the bullish case for each. Some compound on the others, but even more frontiers exist at the intersection of interoperable protocols. Many of these protocols (Bitcoin, Lightning, Ark, Cashu, Fedimint, Payjoin, etc) have robust Rust language projects that allow for some very nice flywheeling and specialization. My focus over the past +1.5yr has been on the Stratum v2 protocol (with some small side quests in corporate hell). Another protocol interoperable using Rust. Stratum v2 is a foundational component of the bullish setup I see so we will explore it first.

https://stratumprotocol.org
It’s actually three sub-protocols, Mining, Jobs, Templates. Abbreviated and not explained in depth here but in reference throughout later sections. It has many desirable engineering traits and qualities. Sv2Templates give it DATUM by Ocean abilities, but this is insufficient alone.

The coinbase transaction can become more private and distributed.

https://Start9.com is written in Rust. A Linux distribution focused on UX of self-hosting. Their upcoming release 040 is in testing at the moment. I was recently able to sit with their team and learn the new packaging SDK. This led to packaging up a Sv1 to Sv2 Translator Proxy (TProx) for their new framework. This was successfully tested using a bitaxe and a dev-testing upstream Sv2 pool. I believe this service packaging will allow for many pioneers to mine with an Sv2 pool using their existing Sv1 machines. It’s the first step in bridging existing infrastructure to Stratum v2. There are several other Sv2 daemons that need to be packaged for StartOS and the TProx needs some polishing. God willing, I intend to polish the TProx and circle back to the other daemons by end of year.

https://iroh.computer is a p2p holepunching library (in Rust) that uses torrent (and other) style discovery in a “dial by node pubkey” networking stack. I successfully PoC’d using a cpu miner (https://github.com/stratum-mining/stratum) and Pool that were Iroh enabled via vibe coding. Removing the need for DNS from mining can be a great decentralizing force. It removes a lot of technical overhead to running any part of the Sv2 stack, making mining more accessible to the layperson. When combined with StartOS, we now have an easy-to-host mining stack that has minimal setup and information exchange for a fellow pioneer to connect to you and share hashrate.

https://bitaxe.org is opening up the floodgates of bitcoin mining hardware. As the industry around hashrate heating is shaped by https://exergyheat.com, I imagine novel and bespoke form factors being built from the foundation that is BitAxe and the https://256Foundation.org. But where will this price-insensitive hashrate go? Some will go to existing pools. But as halvings decimate large bloated operations, you local meetup mining pool will enable you to pay 0 fee transactions in their block template in exchange for your hashrate. All negotiated using eHash (http://hashpool.dev)

Novel accounting models or time tested models will be applied to hashrate across myriad of pools of varying economics. https://www.dmnd.work/ will rise as the first pioneers explore the Sv2 landscape. Their PPLNS-JD accounting will equitably award various eHash sub-pools.

Practical applications.

https://github.com/stratum-mining/stratum/pull/1902 - landing RP this will allow for various accounting to be implemented for hasrate, including eHash.

After this is unlocked, we’ll want some sort of feedback from this persistence storage. This can be window functions over the shares to calculate new coinbase payouts, similar to what Ocean TIDES is doing.

Prior to window functions, there should exist a runtime manipulation of the coinbase transaction, allowing the Pool to introduce a new coinbase TxOut. If the size of this is dynamic, the Template Provider (bitcoin-node) will need to be updated on changed coinbase size and sigOps. This interactivity of the coinbase can then unlock many other novel cases. Perhaps the coinbase is splicing a LN channel? The liveliness and interactivity of mining and lightning are much the same so I believe it’s just a matter of engineering (famous last words, lol).

With coinbase generation and template construction now more dynamic, all of the hashrate heating can go toward these novel use cases. A bitcoin meetup can run a local Pool that clears member transactions for 0 fee. Even if the Pool hits just one block a month, this is more than enough to clear b2b or other low time preference transactions. And while the block is pending, eHash can serve the market as an exchange medium for those willing.

vnprc has been grinding on eHash and has contributed to CDK while pondering the protocol edge cases and implementations. It’s time to take these lessons learned and bring them to the latest Sv2 releases.