Got a minimal DATUM “pool” talking to datum_gateway (interop demo)

TL;DR: datum_gateway being open source is enough to build your own pool. EGPOOL is a minimal proof — not production.

Datum_gateway is open source and the protocol is right there in the code. My take: if you can read the protocol, you can build your own pool.

Before arguing, I wanted to try it. So I hacked together a tiny Python prototype called EGPOOL. It speaks the DATUM protocol and can handshake, push CONFIG, and round-trip shares with the gateway — no Ocean pool code involved.

What I proved (all from the public datum gateway code):

• Framing: 4-byte XOR’d header + payload

• Handshake:

- proto=1 HELLO: sealed to pool LT X25519, signed by client LT Ed25519

- proto=2 RESP: sealed to client SESSION X25519, signed by pool LT Ed25519

• Channel (cmd=5):

- Box(serverSessSK, clientSessPK) w/ 24-byte nonce from nk + client session pk

- Nonces increment per message (LE 6×u32)

• CONFIG 0x99: signed by pool SESSION key, applied by gateway

• Share submit 0x27 ↔ response 0x8F: round-trip works

My test setup

EGPOOL pool server <-> DATUM GATEWAY -> Bitcoin node

I connected a bitaxe miner to DATUM Gateway.

I saw gateway handshake with pool server and accepting shares from miner.

Datum Gateway logs from my run:

Handshake response received.

DATUM Server MOTD: Welcome to Python DATUM Prime (prototype)

client configuration cmd received from DATUM server

DATUM Pool Coinbase Tag: "EGPOOL"

DATUM Pool Prime ID: a1b2c3d4

DATUM Pool Min Diff: 65536

Starting Stratum v1 server

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quick disclaimer — this is a test rig, not a real pool

This is just an interop demo to show the protocol surface is enough.

A production pool still needs all the boring-but-critical stuff: reliable networking & reconnects, user/worker auth, proper vardiff and duplicate detection, real accept/reject plumbing, accounting backed by a DB, coinbaser v2 with real splits, the 0x50 validation path (stxids → by-id → full set), signature discipline (LT vs session), rate limiting/DoS guards, key management/rotation, metrics/alerts, etc

Want to understand more about the protocol?

check my GitHub