Mining pools traditionally operate as hashrate democracies, where the pool operator casts a single vote on behalf of all participants. Ocean, a pool that had switched its default signaling to support BIP-110 in July, built an escape hatch. Its DATUM protocol allows individual miners within the pool to construct their own blocks using their own Bitcoin node software while still sharing in the pool's combined hashpower and reward payouts.
"Hashrate is a vote you cannot fake, and we decided the proposal wasn't worth following," Simple Mining wrote on X.
This is what Simple Mining used to produce block 961,634 on the main chain, deliberately omitting the BIP-110 signal. The proposal they rejected sought to temporarily restrict non-financial data like Ordinals inscriptions in transactions, capping OP_RETURN outputs and limiting Taproot features. DATUM effectively creates a "pool-within-a-pool," turning a monolithic voting bloc into a collection of individual actors. This isn't a bug or an exploit, it's a deliberate architectural choice that prioritizes miner agency over pool operator preference.
From a strategic standpoint, Ocean's position is a fascinating paradox. The pool's public stance defaulted to backing BIP-110, accounting for nearly all of the proposal's meager support before the split. Yet, it built and provided the very tool that allowed a client, Simple Mining, to publicly undermine that stance.
XOOMAR Interpretation: This creates an unstable compromise. For Ocean, it offers a marketing edge, "mine with us, but keep your sovereignty", while potentially diluting its political influence on the network. For a miner like Simple Mining, it provides the best of both worlds: the economic stability of pooled mining and the ideological purity of solo mining. The implied message is stark: a miner's hashpower vote is not for lease. Even a tenant in a pooled apartment building retains the right to paint their own door.
This model tests whether a pool's primary value is merely efficient reward distribution or if it can also be a platform for credible, individual expression. The risk for pools is clear: if DATUM-like features become popular, the already-opaque process of measuring miner sentiment becomes a statistical nightmare, as one entity's hashrate could be signaling a dozen different protocol views simultaneously.
The broader context shows how quixotic BIP-110's attempt was from the start. The minority chain triggered at block 961,632 when nodes enforcing BIP-110 began rejecting non-signaling blocks. It inherited Bitcoin's full mining difficulty but possessed only a sliver of the hashpower.
| Metric |
Main Bitcoin Chain |
BIP-110 Minority Chain |
| Hashpower Share |
~99.85% (per M. Saylor) |
~0.15% |
| Blocks Mined Post-Split |
200+ and advancing |
2 blocks before stalling |
| Next Difficulty Adjustment |
~14 days |
Estimated 350 days |
| Primary Support |
Entire mining ecosystem |
Primarily Ocean pool (default) & Bitcoin Knots nodes |
The numbers tell the story of a non-starter. Michael Saylor confirmed approximately 99.85% of hashpower stayed loyal, and Adam Back of Blockstream bluntly summarized the result: "They forked off and found out." The forked chain produced just two blocks before effectively stalling, while the main chain raced ahead. This overwhelming rejection mirrors historical consensus failures but does so with a new, technical granularity provided by tools like DATUM.
Past Bitcoin governance wars, like the Blocksize Wars, were often characterized by public, tribal campaigning and the threat of monolithic mining pools swinging the network. The BIP-110 incident, in contrast, showcases a more precise and software-driven form of dissent.
XOOMAR Interpretation: The battlefield has matured. It's no longer just about which side can rally the biggest pools through public pressure. It's about the availability of client-level tools that let miners express disagreement within a pool's infrastructure. This complicates the political calculus for pool operators. They can no longer assume their default stance represents their entire hashrate, because their most technically adept users can silently opt out.
This fragmentation poses a practical problem for future network upgrades, particularly soft forks that rely on clear miner signaling for activation. If pools widely adopt individual-choice protocols, determining true consensus could become akin to parsing a million individual votes instead of a few dozen pool signals. The irony is potent: tools built to maximize individual freedom could inadvertently make the collective action required for protocol progress more difficult to orchestrate and measure.
Simple Mining's action was a footnote in the death of BIP-110, which was doomed by its own lack of support. Its lasting significance is as a proof-of-concept. It demonstrates that the mythical, sovereign individual miner isn't extinct, merely dormant, awaiting the right software tools.
The forward-looking implication is for mining pool competition. The most compelling offering may evolve. It's no longer just about the lowest fees or the most reliable payouts, as seen in the scramble for ETF-driven flows. A pool that can credibly guarantee user agency and censorship-resistant mining could carve out a powerful niche, especially among miners wary of political overreach.
What to watch: Will other major pools develop or adopt their own versions of DATUM? If they do, the next contentious Bitcoin improvement proposal will play out on a radically different field. Miner signaling data will require a new lens, one that distinguishes between a pool's default and the aggregate will of its constituent machines. The era of taking a pool's headline signal as its hashrate's unified voice is, if not over, then under serious review.
Disclaimer: This XOOMAR analysis is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, legal, tax, or professional advice. It does not provide buy, sell, hold, price-target, portfolio, or personalized recommendations. Verify information independently and consult qualified professionals before making decisions.
- It challenges the centralized voting power of mining pools by allowing individual miners to dissent from pool-level protocol decisions.
- The DATUM protocol enables a new model of miner sovereignty that could fracture monolithic voting blocs on future Bitcoin upgrades.
- This technical skirmish exposes fundamental tensions in Bitcoin governance that extend far beyond the failed BIP-110 proposal, which garnered only 2.6% of hashrate.
