OCEAN Faces Reputational Crisis After Redirecting Hasrate to Failed BIP-110 Chain

The Bitcoin mining pool OCEAN is facing a severe crisis after a contentious incident involving its Stratum templates. The controversy began when it was revealed that some users had their hashrate redirected to the failed BIP-110 minority chain without explicit consent. This lasted for approximately 18 hours, during which affected miners believed they were using non-BIP-110 templates.

OCEAN acknowledged that its Stratum templates may have inadvertently directed users to the BIP-110 chain despite selecting the non-BIP-110 option. This incident is particularly damaging as OCEAN explicitly markets itself on returning full block-template control to individual miners.

The disclosure triggered an immediate backlash across the Bitcoin mining community, with some calling for the removal of those responsible and Blockstream CEO Adam Back sharply criticizing the incident, describing it as 'unacceptable' and demanding that resulting financial losses be deducted directly from OCEAN co-founder Luke Dashjr's salary.