Luke Dashjr launches non-ASIC Bitcoin fork after Ocean split
- Luke Dashjr left Ocean mining pool after an equity buyback triggered by his failed BIP 110 fork.
- Dashjr launched Convoy, an alternative chain replacing SHA-256 with Blake2b to disable ASIC hardware.
- Markets reacted skeptically as early trading fluctuated between $83 and $383 on niche exchanges.
The breakup was fast, complete, and years in the making.
On Stacker News Live, hosts Keon and Carvin detailed the fallout as Ocean mining pool repurchased co-founder Luke Dashjr's equity following a bitter protocol dispute. Dashjr, long one of Bitcoin's most prominent core developers, resigned as chief technology officer after failing to rally miners behind BIP 110. Bob Burnett stepped in as chairman to stabilize Ocean's core operations, while lead backer Jack Dorsey remained aligned with the pool.
Dashjr did not leave quietly. Partnering with developer Mechanic, he immediately launched Convoy, an alternative blockchain that fundamentally alters consensus rules. By swapping SHA-256 for the Blake2b hashing algorithm, the new network instantly rendered existing ASIC mining rigs obsolete, effectively locking out industrial mining operations in favor of general-compute hardware.
Because the new chain launched without substantial hash rate, unadjusted difficulty resets temporarily pushed block production to roughly one block per minute. Dashjr's venture represents a radical gamble on decentralized mining control, sacrificing established network effects to enforce strict transaction filtering rules at the protocol level.
Financial markets offered an immediate reality check. As Keon noted on Stacker News Live, early trading of the split chain fluctuated wildly between $83 and $383 across a handful of niche exchanges. Historically, developers who split off over ideological differences rarely sustain viable monetary alternatives, with most eventually returning to mainnet development.
The broader ecosystem faces friction on multiple fronts. During the same broadcast, Keon and Carvin highlighted how Swedish financial authorities forced peer-to-peer exchange Peach Bitcoin to dismantle its non-custodial escrow model. Regulators reinterpreted multi-signature dispute resolution as a regulated service, stripping the platform of its signature privacy architecture and forcing identity verification onto traders.
Both developments reveal a growing divide between protocol purism and real-world execution. Whether through ideological hard forks or regulatory choke points, efforts to enforce compliance outside native consensus rules consistently run into economic gravity.
Code can fork, but economic consensus remains stubborn.
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.