Ocean's Hashrate Climbs Back to 45 Exahash After BIP-110 Fork Backlash

Ocean mining pool's hashrate has recovered to roughly 45 exahash per second, Chief Commercial Officer Nacho Pauls said on Simply Bitcoin's live show from Lugano, Switzerland, about four to five weeks after a controversy over the failed BIP-110 fork cost the pool most of its hashing power.

WHAT THE BIP-110 FORK ACTUALLY DID TO OCEAN

OCEAN redirected some miners' hashrate for roughly 18 hours to a failed BIP-110 minority chain without explicit consent, prompting accusations of a hashrate "hijack" and Blockstream CEO Adam Back's demand that losses be deducted from co-founder Luke Dashjr's salary. Ocean's displayed hashrate collapsed from roughly 36 exahash per second on August 8 to about 1.25 exahash per second by August 9, a decline of roughly 96.5 percent. Michael Saylor summarized the outcome bluntly, writing that about 99.85 percent of Bitcoin's hashpower stayed with Bitcoin while the BIP-110 branch mined only two blocks.

PAULS: "WE DIDN'T SPEND ANY OF THAT MONEY"

Pauls defended the pool's approach on the show, arguing Ocean simply gave miners the option to signal for BIP-110 or not, rather than forcing a side. He said the pool itself has no stake in how miners use hashrate they paid for and built, calling that the "purest way of decentralization" since Ocean never takes custody of miners' bitcoin or dictates what they point their hardware at. He acknowledged the pool lost a large share of its hashrate in the fallout, attributing much of it to public comments from Ocean's former CTO around the same time, but said the pool worked directly with clients to explain the choice it had given them.

THE RECOVERY AND THE NEXT TARGET

Pauls said Ocean's hashrate is back to around 45 exahash per second, in line with where it stood before the fork controversy. He is still holding to a public target he set roughly a year ago: 100 exahash per second by the end of 2026, a goal he said he plans to chase through the holidays regardless of the timeline being tight.

THE DECENTRALIZATION LESSONS PAULS SAYS THE INDUSTRY NEEDS

Pauls argued the episode exposed two structural risks for Bitcoin mining: too much hashrate concentrated in a handful of U.S. regions, which leaves the network exposed if a single state regulator moves against miners, and too much hashrate sitting with pools that take custody of blocks rather than letting individual miners build their own, the model Ocean uses through its DATUM system. He also pointed to the AI boom pulling large, well-sited U.S. data centers away from Bitcoin mining toward AI and high-performance computing leases, which he said is forcing smaller and mid-sized miners to find cheaper, more creative energy sources around the world rather than competing for the same handful of premium sites.

A NEW ENTRY POINT THROUGH SAZMINING'S PROTO BOARDS

Pauls pointed to a new option for smaller miners as a sign of where the industry is headed: Sazmining has launched a new offering that allows individual investors to purchase mining hardware developed by Block's Proto division, with hashboards offered at a down payment of $1,397 and 18 months of zero-interest payments, for a total price of $4,187. Purchased equipment is expected to begin operating between November and December 2026. Pauls said he personally watched the boards run at Proto's launch and was able to pull a chip, swap it, and put it back without shutting the rig down, something that would have required disassembling and cleaning an entire ASIC on older hardware.

This story comes from the Simply Bitcoin Live show. Watch the full episode.