<b>Bitcoin Hard Fork: Dashjr's BLAKE2b Plan Faces Skeptical Market</b>
Luke Dashjr has stepped down as chairman and chief technology officer of OCEAN, a Bitcoin mining pool. The decision comes after a difficult month for the pool, which saw its hashrate drop by 96% in August.
The departure was reportedly due to disputes over leadership and the handling of customer power. Dashjr had previously championed BIP-110, an anti-spam soft fork that required 55% miner support but ultimately stalled after two blocks.
Dashjr has since announced his support for a Bitcoin hard fork on September 1, which will switch to the BLAKE2b mining algorithm. This change is expected to render existing Bitcoin machines obsolete and punish concentrated mining power.
Critics have disputed Dashjr's claims, with Ripple's former chief technology officer David Schwartz dismissing the network under attack claim as 'nonsense'. The legacy Bitcoin chain has been described by Dashjr as running under centralized management, with miners unable to build their own templates.