Ocean raised a $6.2 million seed round led by Jack Dorsey. One of the seed investors, Accomplice, has a broad crypto portfolio that includes Circle, the company behind USDC. Dorsey's own company Block began rolling out USDC support on Cash App in May 2026. And Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin in existence, became an operational partner in April 2025 by deploying hashrate on Ocean through DATUM.
I do not agree with stablecoins either.
USDC and USDT are fiat by another name. The fact that Ocean's lead investor now distributes USDC and their operational partner literally issues USDT is a problem by proxy. You called them shitcoin overlords and I can't argue with that characterisation of the money behind Ocean.
What I can say is that Ocean's product, as it stands today, does not serve those interests. The pool runs Bitcoin Knots, uses the DATUM protocol so miners build their own block templates, pays out non-custodially, and defaults to filtering non-monetary transactions. Since DATUM launched in September 2024, filtering is a miner-level decision, not a pool-level mandate. Every design choice in the product points at Bitcoin as money.
In my funding research across 169 companies, $6.2M falls in the $5-20M bracket where 60% of companies have drifted away from Bitcoin-only: https://daniella.io/bitcoin-funding/ So the pressure exists, especially with Tether in the picture.
Right now the product is Bitcoin mining. If Ocean's product changes to accommodate fiat interests of funders and partners, that could change things. The observation about fiat incentives shaping behaviour applies to everyone, including Ocean.
You're right to ask, and I agree with you.
Ocean raised a $6.2 million seed round led by Jack Dorsey. One of the seed investors, Accomplice, has a broad crypto portfolio that includes Circle, the company behind USDC. Dorsey's own company Block began rolling out USDC support on Cash App in May 2026. And Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin in existence, became an operational partner in April 2025 by deploying hashrate on Ocean through DATUM.
I do not agree with stablecoins either.
USDC and USDT are fiat by another name. The fact that Ocean's lead investor now distributes USDC and their operational partner literally issues USDT is a problem by proxy. You called them shitcoin overlords and I can't argue with that characterisation of the money behind Ocean.
What I can say is that Ocean's product, as it stands today, does not serve those interests. The pool runs Bitcoin Knots, uses the DATUM protocol so miners build their own block templates, pays out non-custodially, and defaults to filtering non-monetary transactions. Since DATUM launched in September 2024, filtering is a miner-level decision, not a pool-level mandate. Every design choice in the product points at Bitcoin as money.
In my funding research across 169 companies, $6.2M falls in the $5-20M bracket where 60% of companies have drifted away from Bitcoin-only: https://daniella.io/bitcoin-funding/ So the pressure exists, especially with Tether in the picture.
Right now the product is Bitcoin mining. If Ocean's product changes to accommodate fiat interests of funders and partners, that could change things. The observation about fiat incentives shaping behaviour applies to everyone, including Ocean.