DMND and RootstockLabs have announced a new feature rollout aimed at further decentralizing Bitcoin mining. The integration uses Stratum V2 to allow miners at the pool who are already building their own block templates to also handle the selection and inclusion of merge-mined block commitments from the Rootstock (RSK) sidechain.
Merge-mining allows multiple blockchains to share the same proof-of-work from the same set of miners. In this setup, a child chain structures its block headers to include the parent chain’s headers. The hash of the child chain’s block header is actually included inside a parent chain block, usually in the coinbase transaction. The child chain’s software validates part of the parent chain’s blocks during verification.
This means miners of the parent chain can mine multiple blockchains at once by simply including block header commitments in their coinbase transaction. When they find a block for the parent chain, they also find one for all child chains.
Direct Payments for Miners
DMND’s integration lets miners claim sidechain rewards in sBTC directly on the sidechain. sBTC is Rootstock’s bitcoin-backed token, whose reserves are managed by the federation operating the sidechain. There is no revenue sharing or intermediary pool custody involved.
Some observers worry this dynamic could actually have the opposite effect on decentralization. Still, the development is important because it will put such questions to the test in real-world conditions.
Alejandro De La Torre, CEO and Co-Founder of DMND, said: “The miner controls the merge mining and the miner gets paid for the merge mining. More delegation of control to miners is our key support for further decentralisation of the Bitcoin ecosystem.”
