Below, I present "SimplePool" -- v 0.1
A key Bitcoin problem is **mining centralization** -- both the centralization itself -- but (more importantly) the misplaced FUD about it. Poor thought leadership, has derailed the mining conversation, as well as other much more important mission critical Bitcoin projects. This **disturbing lack of honesty**, may even kill off the BTC project as a whole -- eventually.
Anyway, to fix that, I proposed that we create:
1. open source **pool** software, maintained as a community project
2. open source **pool hopper** software -- so that Hashers can just point their hash at the Pool Hopper -- which will automatically give them the best price, the healthiest blocks, w/ the least censorship
3. an incentive compatible, scalable, safe, non-custodial way for small miners (up to 8 billion individual miners) to safely collect $ from a pool
We have now shipped a **preliminary** version, of this.
It is brand new -- but let me give you an idea of where it is going.
Important: I do **not** think this software will ever replace today's existing pools. Pools are **brands** -- so Foundry, Luxor etc aren't going anywhere. And they collect $ based on their **reputation**.
But --hopefully-- we can (eventually) make the SimplePool software so good -- that it takes the software maintenance problem off of their hands. While also increasing overall pool competitiveness. Especially if we obsessively focus on revenue maximization (which we will).
This is an effective way to punish censorship -- if a pool censors for too long, it will be starved of $ and hashrate. It is also an effective way to recover from a situation where there is only 1 pool (or only 2 pools or 0 pools) -- since [1] the open source pool software makes it easy to create a new pool, and [2] the hopper will automatically feed hash to this new pool (if it pays extra high $ "introductory rate" PPS).
In general, we do not want "closed source" software in Bitcoin. Instead we want openness and transparency.
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Unfortunately, most of the Bitcoin dev industry is lazy / corrupt. Most of their time is spent conspiring, to form monopolist guilds -- so as to further enhance their collective laziness. So they have negative productivity. Basically everything you hear on Twitter / on stage at conferences / on the mailing lists (these days) is a lie -- other than that, they are really great people, I guess.
Here are some examples of deranged mining beliefs:
1. Luke/Ocean's misguided abandonment of PPS. Luke believes each miner should hand-craft each block -- and not outsource this task to the pool. But he is wrong. Efficiency, specialization of labor, and accountability are --by far-- more important. There is zero conflict of interest between the pool and hasher -- both want to maximize the block's txn fee revenue. So the whole issue is a total waste of everyone's time, and an enormous source of confusion -- all to prop up Luke's misguided pet project, Ocean.
2. Worse than that, a large portion of the bitcoin-dev mailing list believes that up is down. According to them, any extra $ flowing to miners -- (merged mining, heat reuse, business side deals [ercot credits]) is misinterpreted as "changing mining incentives". But that is wrong. The truth is: it has always been possible (and desirable) to pay miners $. We can pay them extra fees, or we can have a business contract with them, or an enemy could "bribe" them (etc). Satoshi invented merged mining, and was an ardent believer of the (common sense) idea that miners should make as much $ as possible. This keeps them loyal to us -- the users.
3. Most of the claims made by Statum V2 are untrue. Also, that project has been active for like 7 years ... why isn't it done yet??
More details below.