OCEAN Review 2025: The Best Bitcoin Mining Pool?

OCEAN is a bitcoin mining pool launched on November 28, 2023, by longtime Bitcoin Knots/Core developer Luke Dashjr and seasoned Bitcoin expert Bitcoin Mechanic. The project was backed by a $6.2 million seed round led by Jack Dorsey of Block, with a mission to bring radical decentralization to Bitcoin mining.

OCEAN stands on the shoulders of giants, having been reborn from the legacy of ELIGIUS—the second-ever Bitcoin mining pool, originally founded by Luke Dashjr in 2011.

"We had a strategy call with our lead investor, Jack Dorsey, and on the call, he just asked us bluntly, 'When you guys tell your people about your pool... Eligius, like, what are they gonna type on Google?' And we're like, 'Well, they're gonna type Eligius!' Then he asked, 'Well, how do you spell?' So we decided at that time that it was maybe time for a rebrand, so we went to the marketing drawing board and we called it OCEAN. Because the ocean is transparent, the ocean is permissionless—anyone can use it." – Mark Artymko, President of OCEAN

In this review, we’ll explore OCEAN in detail: what it is, how it works, its key features, how to set up your miner to direct hashrate to OCEAN, and its evolution since launch.

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How OCEAN Mining works

First and foremost, OCEAN upholds the true values of the Bitcoin network by offering two key features that most other pools lack: no KYC and non-custodial payouts. With OCEAN, there’s no need for identification or registration—miners can simply add their address in their ASICs and start mining, without the hassle of creating an account. This approach aligns with Bitcoin's pseudonymity and decentralization principles.

Additionally, OCEAN is a non-custodial pool, meaning they never hold any of the coins. All rewards are paid directly from the block’s coinbase transaction, ensuring miners receive their earnings in a fully transparent and secure manner, without any intermediary involvement. For smaller miners, OCEAN also offers the option to request payouts via the Lightning Network, providing a faster and more efficient way to access their rewards (more details on this feature later).

OCEAN bitcoin mining pool works by leveraging the DATUM protocol to restore decentralization and give miners full control over the Bitcoin block construction process. Unlike traditional mining pools where the pool operator controls the block template—deciding which transactions are included—OCEAN allows miners to take charge of the block creation. This ensures that miners are not simply selling hash power to a pool but are actively involved in the construction of the blocks they mine, maintaining the decentralized nature of Bitcoin that Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned.

At the core of OCEAN's operation is its non-custodial payout system, meaning that miners directly receive their payouts from the Bitcoin network without the need for an intermediary. By avoiding the custodial model common in many pools, OCEAN eliminates the risk of third-party control over miners' rewards, providing them with greater security and transparency. Miners can see exactly which transactions are included in the blocks they mine, offering full visibility into the block templates and their mining activity.

OCEAN also works to protect Bitcoin from censorship risks by decentralizing the block template construction. With the control of block construction spread across individual miners instead of a few large pools, OCEAN reduces the risk of censorship or a 51% attack. This decentralization ensures that the network remains permissionless and open, even as the pool grows in size.

In addition to these features, OCEAN is incorporating Lightning Network payouts, which allows miners to receive instant, low-cost payments. This integration solves the issue of small, unspendable amounts (dust) and provides liquidity to the Lightning Network, enhancing Bitcoin's scalability and efficiency.

To participate in OCEAN, miners can simply point their hashrate to stratum+tcp://mine.ocean.xyz:3334. This is the easiest way. But, in order to promote decentralization and less fees, they would have to set up a DATUM gateway, which connects their mining hardware with a Bitcoin full node. This setup allows miners to manage their block construction process while ensuring they still benefit from regular payouts through OCEAN’s infrastructure. In its early stages, OCEAN operated with a 0% fee for the first months, after which it implemented a fair and reasonable fee structure for all miners, large and small (more on that later).

Through these innovations, OCEAN is not just another Bitcoin mining pool—it's a movement towards a truly decentralized and transparent mining ecosystem, one that restores power to the miners and secures the integrity of the Bitcoin network.

OCEAN Features

Let's have a look at how OCEAN distinguishes itself from the other pools, thanks to its unique features.

TIDES

TIDES, or Transparent Index of Distinct Extended Shares, is OCEAN’s innovative payout system designed to balance fairness and incentivize miner loyalty. When a new miner joins, TIDES averages their hash contributions across the last 8 blocks, effectively creating a kind of "initiation period." During this time, new miners won’t immediately receive full payouts, as their rewards are gradually calculated based on contributions over these 8 blocks. This approach helps secure fairness and rewards consistent, long-term participation.

For miners, this setup means it’s strategic to join after major events, like the Bitcoin halving, to fully capitalize on reward structures. If a miner joins just before a halving, they may miss out on maximum rewards since the payout calculation requires time to reach full effectiveness. However, TIDES also offers a significant upside: when blocks are mined faster, payouts can exceed those of standard pools, sometimes by a substantial margin. For example, if a block is found quickly, a miner could receive a payout far greater than usual, offering up to 25% more than traditional pools.

This dynamic system ensures miners benefit from faster block discovery, creating an unique opportunity for higher returns. TIDES encourages miner engagement and loyalty, making it a standout feature for those seeking long-term profitability in the Bitcoin mining landscape.

DATUM

DATUM, short for Decentralized Alternative Templates for Universal Mining, was created to return Bitcoin mining to its decentralized roots. In recent years, large mining pools have centralized block construction, with miners acting mainly as hash power providers. DATUM gives control back to miners, allowing them to directly create block templates and decide which transactions to include.

Initially, OCEAN considered Stratum V2 but found it unsuitable for true decentralization. DATUM was then developed from scratch to be a fully decentralized protocol. This framework enables miners to set up a DATUM gateway, connect with their mining hardware, and use a full Bitcoin node to submit blocks directly to the network. Miners can manage block templates, benefiting from consistent OCEAN payouts while retaining control over which transactions make it into their blocks.

With DATUM, miners receive payouts directly from the Bitcoin coinbase transaction in a non-custodial way, avoiding the central control typical of other pools. This setup supports Bitcoin’s core values of security and censorship resistance, ensuring the network remains decentralized and free from dominant mining pools’ influence.

Lightning Network Payouts

OCEAN offers quite high on-chain payouts designed to manage high-fee environments, setting active address payouts at 0.01048576 BTC and inactive addresses (for over a week) at 0.00065536 BTC. However, for Bitcoin Lightning Network payments, there is no lower threshold, and OCEAN uses BOLT12 offers.

To ensure secure and anonymous Lightning payouts, miners must sign a message linking their OCEAN Bitcoin address to a BOLT12 offer, which requires message-signing capability in the miner’s wallet or signing device. Once a BOLT12 offer is generated, OCEAN provides a unique message to sign. Miners should also ensure sufficient Lightning channels and inbound liquidity; otherwise, payments default to on-chain once the payout threshold is met.

Block Templates

If you can or don't want to run a DATUM gateway to make your own templates, OCEAN provides miners with four distinct block template policies, each designed to give more control over the block construction process while maintaining the advantages of pooled mining. Miners can select from the following options:

1. OCEAN Recommended (default, 2% fee) – Focuses on transactions and small data.
2. Core+Antispam (2% fee) – Includes transactions and limited spam.
3. Core (2% fee) – Includes transactions and most types of spam.
4. Data-Free (2% fee) – Only includes transactions, with no additional data.

These templates are not separate pools; when any OCEAN miner finds a block, all miners share in the rewards, regardless of which template they use. This flexibility in template choice is a significant step towards decentralization, allowing miners to tailor their blocks to their preferences without losing the security and efficiency of pooled mining.

Transparency + Privacy

OCEAN is structured to prioritize both transparency and privacy, embodying a unique non-custodial model that minimizes trust in pool operators and maximizes control for individual miners. Here's how OCEAN achieves this:

1. Non-Custodial Payouts – Instead of pooling rewards in a centralized wallet, OCEAN distributes mining rewards directly to miners’ wallets from the block coinbase, either on-chain or via Lightning. This model removes the risk of withheld payouts by pool operators and is key to ensuring trustless reward distribution.
2. No KYC or Registration – Joining OCEAN requires no KYC verification or personal data registration (you just need a btc address), enabling miners to participate privately and preserving financial anonymity in alignment with Bitcoin’s ethos. This commitment to privacy makes OCEAN accessible to individual and smaller-scale miners, who often face barriers in other pools.
3. Public Dashboard – Transparency is further reinforced through OCEAN’s public dashboard, accessible to everyone, where miners can track stats, including the number of blocks mined, reward allocations, and hash contributions. This feature lets miners and the community monitor pool activity and validate OCEAN’s operational transparency.
4. 1sat=1sat – True to its decentralizing vision, OCEAN ensures all rewards and fees are distributed fairly, regardless of hash power size. Small miners aren't marginalized; they simply earn proportional rewards, underscoring OCEAN's commitment to inclusivity.
5. Payout Thresholds and Lightning – OCEAN currently has a minimum payout of 0.01048576 BTC for who wants to receive it on-chain, a practical threshold for security and fee considerations. However, for smaller miners, the Lightning payouts lowered significantly the payout thresholds (actually, there is no lower threshold), enhancing accessibility and allowing even minimal contributions to be rewarded. This means you can mine and earn with your Canaan Avalon Nano 3 or even with your Bitaxe.

Luke Dashjr’s OCEAN launch is a major step in decentralizing Bitcoin mining. By prioritizing transparency, privacy, and a non-custodial approach, OCEAN seeks to empower miners and uphold the decentralized ideals of Bitcoin.

How To Start Mining On OCEAN

Getting started with mining on OCEAN is easy—here’s what you need:

1. A Bitcoin address
2. An internet connection (Wi-Fi or Wired)
3. A SHA-256 Bitcoin miner

Once your miner is powered on and connected to your network via Wi-Fi, access its web UI using the default username and password (these vary by miner). Then, go to the configuration page and add the stratum address:

• Pool address: stratum+tcp://mine.ocean.xyz:3334
• Worker: Your Bitcoin address (no spaces or extra characters)
• Password: x

Hit on save and reboot your miner. You will start mining right away on OCEAN.

Is OCEAN Better/More Profitable Than Other Pools?

If you’re a miner, plan to become one, or just want to point your S9 Space Heater at OCEAN for pure profit (regardless of decentralization), you might wonder if it’s more profitable to mine with OCEAN versus an FPPS pool.

To make a fair comparison, ideally, we’d need data from a miner who has used both pools, with similar hashrates and around 100% luck on each, while also accounting for difficulty adjustments. This isn’t the easiest comparison to make, especially since other pools lack transparent payout systems.

Luckily, Bob Burnett of Barefoot Mining, a big mining farm that points their hashrate to different pools, posted a comparison between OCEAN pool and other three pools and the conclusion is that terahash per terahash, OCEAN is the most profitable. You can download the study document here:

Several other miners who have done similar tests report that OCEAN has increased their profitability compared to FPPS pools—all while supporting decentralization, non-custodiality and earning no-KYC bitcoin, which often carries a premium over KYC bitcoin.

OCEAN Fees

Since the inception in november 2023 to around mid november 2024 OCEAN operated in a 0% pool fees. However, in order to keep the company profitabile they had to activate fees, and they are surprisingly low, especially for who runs their own DATUM gateway. Let's have a look.

OCEAN Hashrate

On November 28, 2023, OCEAN started with just a few petahashes, but however the first block (819242) was found only a few days later, on December 1, 2023 (excluding the over 11,631 blocks found from OCEAN's first iteration, ELIGIUS). Throughout 2024, the pool experienced remarkable growth, surpassing 4 exahashes/s by late November 2024.

The same can be said for the number of blocks. In late 2023, OCEAN was finding approximately one block per week, but by late 2024, the pool is finding around 2-3 blocks per day on average. This increase in block discovery boosts earnings and naturally attracted more hashrate to the pool.

The latest features, including the DATUM gateway, Bolt12 offers, industry-leading low fees, and the potential for higher earnings compared to FPPS, have attracted a growing number of miners, both small and large. This trend is likely to continue into the future.

My OCEAN

At blockdyor, we've mined—and still occasionally mine—using OCEAN for all our tests, including with the Antminer S9i, Canaan Avalon Nano 3, and hashrate marketplaces like Rigly and Mining Rig Rentals. We plan to continue using OCEAN for these purposes and may scale up our mining operations. You can check our updated results on our page, as everything is made public.

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OCEAN Pros & Cons

It’s actually challenging to identify major downsides with OCEAN at the moment, as this new pool has quickly attracted a substantial following. This is largely thanks to support from Bitcoin industry stars like Jack Dorsey, Mechanic, and Luke Dashjr.

However, the pool’s non-custodial model does introduce some trade-offs. For instance, setting up certain features, like Bolt12 offers for smaller miners wanting threshold-free payouts, requires a Bitcoin Lightning node with sufficient liquidity—a setup not everyone has readily available. In addition, the variance introduced by the TIDES system requires miners to adopt a lower time preference and align with different incentives.

Bottom Line

While most other pools operate as a black box, OCEAN has revived the core values of the original ELIGIUS pool, bringing transparency and pseudonymity back—two crucial principles championed by the cypherpunks who birthed Bitcoin. Although it's not yet the largest pool by hashrate, the future looks promising for OCEAN.

As hashrate continues to grow, more and more miners are joining, contributing to the decentralization of the Bitcoin network. Thanks to the strong leadership of Dorsey, Dashjr, and the rest of the OCEAN team, the tide is turning, and the times are changing.

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OCEAN Evaluation

Hashpower Selection: OCEAN Bitcoin Mining Pool focuses solely on SHA-256 Bitcoin mining, with various mining templates such as OCEAN, Core, Ordisrespector, and Data-Free, each designed for different user preferences and needs. This single-focus approach simplifies the setup process and provides flexibility while enhancing decentralization.
Rating: 5/5

Platform Usability: OCEAN’s interface is straightforward for experienced miners familiar with configuring mining templates. While newer users may encounter a slight learning curve, the setup becomes smooth and intuitive once they get accustomed to the options.
Rating: 5/5

Trust and Security: OCEAN’s model brings transparency by offering pseudonymous, non-custodial payouts directly from the coinbase transaction, eliminating reliance on third parties. This structure aligns with Bitcoin’s decentralization goals and builds trust within the mining community.
Rating: 5/5

Pricing and Fees: OCEAN charges a low 2% fee, with a reduced 1% fee for miners who create their own block templates using the DATUM protocol. The lack of hidden costs keeps transactions straightforward and makes it a competitive choice in the mining pool space.
Rating: 5/5

Customer Support: OCEAN offers support via a dedicated system, with response times that meet industry standards. The support structure aligns with OCEAN’s commitment to transparency and decentralization, building a community of miners who appreciate these values.
Rating: 4/5

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)