Luke Dashjr sells Ocean stake to launch Convoy hard fork
- Luke Dashjr sold his Ocean pool equity to launch Convoy, a hard-forked Bitcoin alternative chain.
- Convoy swapped SHA-256 for Blake2b hashing to disable existing ASIC mining hardware.
- European regulators forced Peach Bitcoin to end identity-free peer-to-peer trade escrow.
Luke Dashjr has walked away from Ocean pool. The long-brewing feud over transaction filtering on Bitcoin ended with a corporate buyout and an immediate chain split.
On Stacker News Live, hosts Keon and Carvin detailed the mechanics of the departure. Ocean repurchased Dashjr’s equity, ending his tenure as chief technology officer. Ocean chairman Bob Burnett stepped up to manage corporate operations, supported by primary backer Jack Dorsey. Meanwhile, Dashjr joined forces with developer Mechanic to launch Convoy, a hard-forked network designed to purge arbitrary data inscriptions and protocol spam from its ledger.
Convoy abandons Bitcoin’s legacy SHA-256 proof-of-work in favor of the Blake2b hashing algorithm. By altering the underlying hash function, Dashjr effectively rendered specialized ASIC mining rigs useless on his new network. Difficulty resets on Convoy initially allowed miners to process blocks at a rapid pace of roughly one block per minute.
Early trading showed how little consensus followed Dashjr into the wilderness.
Niche exchanges briefly listed the split chain’s tokens in a volatile range between $83 and $383. On Stacker News Live, Keon observed that rogue Bitcoin developers who break away over protocol purity rarely create lasting monetary alternatives. While Carr anticipated eventual Layer-2 scaling efforts on the new chain, economic support remains sparse compared to the main Bitcoin network.
The rift coincided with broader friction across non-custodial Bitcoin infrastructure. During the same September 6, 2026 broadcast, the hosts highlighted Swedish regulators forcing peer-to-peer exchange Peach Bitcoin to dismantle its KYC-free escrow system. European authorities overturned a 2022 policy interpretation, demanding identity verification for multi-signature dispute resolution.
Keon noted the policy irony: stripping platforms of non-custodial arbitration mechanics forces peer-to-peer traders to absorb scam risk unless they submit to full surveillance. This regulatory squeeze on hybrid services accelerates the divide between state-sanctioned rails and uncensorable, protocol-level tools operating outside corporate entities.
Dashjr got his clean ledger, but history suggests the economic network effect stays behind.
Source Intelligence
- Deep dive into what was said in the episodes
SNL #240: JOINT STATEMENT OF OCEAN AND LUKE DASHJR • Sep 6
- Luke Dashjr has parted ways with Ocean Mining, resigning as CTO and selling his equity back to the company. Luke Dashjr will launch a new mining venture named Convoy to continue his pursuit of decentralized mining.
- Luke Dashjr's spin-off chain uses the Blake2b hashing algorithm and is temporarily mining blocks every minute due to unadjusted difficulty. Carr predicts the chain will eventually attempt to deploy Layer-2 scaling solutions.
Also discussed on this episode: (8)
Privacy (1)
- Blindport offers a NAT hole-punching tunnel similar to Cloudflare but does not terminate TLS at its servers. Keyon explains this design prevents the provider from reading plain-text HTTPS requests, offering self-hosters a more private alternative.
Coding (2)
- Developer EK hosted a terminal-based Capture the Flag security contest run directly on a local laptop. The challenge awarded 20,000 satoshis to several winners and an additional 10,000 satoshis to another user for uncovering system flags.
- Open Agents launched Coder Terminal, a developer harness powered by Gemini 3.8 Flash. The harness bypasses the frequent permission prompts typical of tools like Claude, allowing autonomous local file system changes by default.
Regulation (1)
- Swedish regulators forced peer-to-peer Bitcoin platform Peach to suspend its KYC-free escrow service. Keyon argues that regulators have zero incentive to protect users from scams, preferring massive databases of private financial data to ease surveillance.
Models (1)
- An AI research paper shows that training an LLM harness yields significant performance gains across different models. Keyon defines a harness as the toolset chassis that translates local system capabilities and command-line utilities to the AI engine.
Adoption (1)
- Stacker News integrated Lightspark's Spark Wallet to lower the onboarding barrier for non-technical users. Keyon defends the integration against custodial critics, noting that training wheels are essential to scale Bitcoin adoption beyond the developer community.
Philosophy (1)
- Carr attributes the strong community backlash against Spark Wallet to personal animosity toward Lightspark CEO David Marcus. Marcus's previous leadership roles at Facebook's Libra project and PayPal fuel structural suspicion within the maximalist community.
Education (1)
- Discussing alternative learning methods, Keyon highlights hands-on initiatives like Bitcoin Shala, which teaches core network concepts entirely through the command line. This practical approach reflects a broader preference among developers for active immersion.