Bitcoin mining startup DMND has opened applications for miners to join its Stratum V2 pool as launch partners, offering a 0% fee for the first two months.
The company, backed by Bitcoin venture firm Trammell Venture Partners (TVP) in a Q4 2024 financing round, aims to decentralize mining by allowing miners to construct their own block templates, reducing centralization risks and improving payout transparency. The terms of the raise remain undisclosed.
The mining pool industry has certainly seen its fair share of centralization, with two major groups controlling upwards of 60% of Bitcoin’s hashrate: Foundry Digital and Antpool. Moreover, Antpool generates templates for multiple smaller pools, likely increasing the total hashrate under both entities.
Pools like DMND–and Ocean Mining in 2023–highlight a recent appetite for venture capital to enter the pool game. It’s not without risk, however. For example, MEGA Pool launched in early 2023, only to be washed out in the same year.
For DMND co-founder Alejandro de la Torre, it’s about addressing an existential problem with Bitcoin.
“The Bitcoin mining industry has a key problem which I’ve pinpointed over my 10 year career: mining pool centralization,” de la Torre said in a statement. “It is paramount that we make Stratum V2 a reality. SV2 will help decentralize Bitcoin mining by allowing miners to build their own blocks.”
DMND uses a process dubbed “SLICE” to ensure auditable transactions with no hidden fees. The pool also markets its end-to-end encryption scheme which claims to prevent hashrate hijacking.
