Great to see more competition in the mining pool space, and I wish nostr:npub1lh273a4wpkup00stw8dzqjvvrqrfdrv2v3v4t8pynuezlfe5vjnsnaa9nk and nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m the best.
But there seems to be some false advertising around nostr:npub1qtvl2em0llpnnllffhat8zltugwwz97x79gfmxfz4qk52n6zpk3qq87dze:
- “radically transparent”
- closed source
- “fully non-custodial”
- minimum withdrawal amount
Did I miss something? Are there plans to change these things?
THANK YOU.
I presume the minimum withdrawal amount will drastically decrease or go away when they enable lightning payouts, which is supposedly planned.
Yeah, I do understand why there’s an on-chain withdrawal minimum, and lightning would certainly fix that. If they announced future plans for lightning payouts then I missed it.
Even if they enable lightninh payouts, aksually, it's still custodial. The pool still initially collects the coinbase tx for them and then allows liners to take their cut.
In theory, they could just take the coinbase and disabel withdrawals.
Sound like their payment mechanism averages over whatever the pools expected discovery time for 8 blocks is. So yeah there would have to be some level of trust there.
The mechanism may be more easily auditable, but nothing besides the usual business incentives seem to prevent them rugging during that time window.
AFAIK there is pool that does payouts directly from the coinbase in the same block but I don't think it's worth it at all since most payout utxos are close to dust.
That makes sense. Seems like some level of centralization is inevitable, but hopefully down the road trust can be minimized using things like cashu mints with auditable reserves.
Cashu is fully custodial fwiw.
Of course. There are trade offs though - either cashu with private lightning withdrawals or immediate lightning payments with less privacy.
But you’re right, I suppose lightning direct is “less” custodial. I tend to prefer the idea of cashu since most lightning is custodial or small payments can cause issues these days anyway.
Honestly the more I think about it… seems like cashu is the better end goal for any platform that is inherently custodial at some level, which I think we’ve established ocean is. If they run their own mint then withdrawing cashu is effectively the same as lightning, but users have more options to protect their privacy.
True. But they could trigger an automated Lightning payment and have only momentary “in flight” custody, not unlike what many LSPs do.
It is listed on their website for whatever that’s worth. 
very great questions right here
They're still building. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt
Same, but these guys know who they are marketing to, and it’s not the big corporate miners who WANT the custodians and KYC.
It’s fine if these things are planned improvements, but they should be advertised as such. The way it stands is pretty misleading IMO.
They plan on lightning integration next year which solves the threshold issue. Also they did say they will manually pay out small balances to those who look like they'll never make the threshold on a best effort basis.
The radically transparent piece... well... I'd like an answer on what parts of the code will be open sourced.
I think what they are referring to as radically transparent is the transaction template preview which you can see before the block is mined, not after like all other pools.
I don't think they're perfect yet but it's a step in the right direction.
aah
maybe there's indeed no other way to be mining noncustodially than actually solo mining
this seems like the second best way tho if you cannot afford to solo mine
You can pay miners directly from the coinbase tx, but this is incredibly inefficient and not scalable. I understand why pools are the way they are, my only concern is the messaging around Ocean compared to other pools.
Great questions!
cc nostr:npub1t2wy3j850q34zy6amzw9mzfsl66eedcx2tlaxlv3v7leytedzp5szs8c2u
On the minimum withdrawal amount I heard that lightning network integration is planned for 2024.
FOSS is the way.
Like nostr:npub13z3v8dpqkjszwur2npsq687hgjkxelgjugqmwsvfhe00fv4n4fzsfu3fzc I did not find a github, where I can create and manage issues, and see a roadmap. Lmk if y’all need help with this. Happy to help from product side.
