Luke Dashjr Exits Mining Pool Ocean After Split Over Bitcoin Mining's Future

Luke Dashjr, a 16-year veteran Bitcoin Core developer and co-founder of mining pool OCEAN, resigned as chairman, chief technology officer, and director on August 29, 2026 following a mutual separation with the pool. OCEAN repurchased all of Dashjr's equity; the buyout price was not disclosed.

The joint separation statement cited differing visions following recent protocol developments but did not name a specific proposal, such as BIP-110, Bitcoin Knots, proof-of-work changes, or other technical initiatives, as the direct cause of the disagreement.

Dashjr will pursue a new mining venture called CONVOY. At the time of reporting, CONVOY had not published an operational pool, disclosing no endpoint, codebase, participating miners, infrastructure, fees, or block-template policy. No transfer of miners, staff other than Dashjr, or infrastructure from OCEAN to CONVOY was disclosed.

OCEAN's hashrate share measured at 2.45 percent of the network on a point snapshot (4 of 163 previous blocks as of August 30 at 07:07 UTC), with block-share-derived estimate of about 24.57 exahashes per second. Over a trailing-week window, OCEAN accounted for 29 of 1,007 blocks (2.88 percent), according to CryptoSlate's reporting, with latest weekly hashrate placing the pool at 25.33 EH/s and 2.86 percent of the network.

OCEAN added dedicated BIP-110 and no-signal endpoints in July, then returned its default endpoint to the non-BIP-110 chain on August 9 while keeping both choices live, per CryptoSlate. The pool said its DATUM system lets participating miners control block construction. OCEAN stated it will continue operating its transparent, non-custodial pool. The pool did not disclose its remaining ownership structure or successor appointments.