Ocean mining pool refutes claims of censoring certain Bitcoin transactions

Bitcoin (BTC) wallet provider Samourai Wallet has accused Bitcoin mining pool Ocean of censoring Whirlpool CoinJoin transactions and BIP47 notification transactions from Dec. 6. However, Ocean’s top executive has denied the claims while asking the Bitcoin wallet provider to fix a bug in their software.

On Dec. 7, Samourai Wallet claimed that a new policy enacted by Ocean mining pool censors certain Bitcoin transactions. In addition, the wallet provider accused X (formerly Twitter) and Block co-founder, Jack Dorsey, who is also an investor at Ocean, of a “hostile action.”

We can confirm that @ocean_mining has enacted a policy of censoring Whirlpool coinjoin transactions and BIP47 notification transactions as of Dec 6, 2023

This is a regrettable action by the operators @jack and @LukeDashjr and far surpasses any hostile action we have seen before

— Samourai Wallet (@SamouraiWallet) December 7, 2023

In the thread, Samourai Wallet further accused Bitcoin Core dev and Ocean founder Luke Dashjr of censoring transactions and deploying blacklists for transactions in the past and suggested his long-standing intent to do so.

The latest accusation from Samourai Wallet blames Dashjr for imposing a 46-byte limit to OP_RETURN function as opposed to 80 bytes, which came into effect in Bitcoin Core version 0.12. As a result, Samourai Wallet claims that Ocean allegedly excludes privacy-enhancing transactions and advised miners to “reconsider and point your hash power to another pool.”

Related: Jack Dorsey’s ₿trust acquires African Bitcoin organization Qala

Dashjr refuted Samourai Wallet’s claims against Ocean, stating:

“This is a bug in your software, not an intentional policy on our end.”

In addition, he appeared unsure about the concerns raised by the wallet provider as he asked, “What is this data even for? I’ve looked at trying to work around it, but can’t find any technical details.”

Dashjr took no blame and asked Samourai Wallet to “fix it on your end.” The conversation split the crypto community into supporting the disparate schools of thought. While some supported the wallet provider with an “80 Bytes is 80 Bytes” narrative, others advised them to fix the bug. One community member, who was a former ASIC and iOS developer,  believed the new policy that enforces censorship was “unintentional”

Additionally, Brad Mills from Nostr Wallet said, “There’s no policy to censor Whirlpool or privacy-preserving transactions.”

This is sensational. There’s no policy to censor whirlpool or privacy preserving transactions.

The whole point of oceans game changing block template scheme and coinbase payouts is actually to preserve privacy.

Let’s operate in good faith.

Luke may have previously not wanted…

— Brad Mills ⚡️ (@bradmillscan) December 7, 2023

Samourai Wallet continues to accuse Dashjr of lying and deceiving community members by shifting the blame away from itself as it asks the community, “Don’t let them get away with this.”

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