Ocean Mining defends accusations of censoring privacy-focused Bitcoin transactions by Samourai Wallet News ▸ Bitcoin ▸ Censorship
Ocean Mining defends accusations of censoring privacy-focused Bitcoin transactions by Samourai Wallet
Ocean Mining says the problem was caused by a bug on Samourai's system.
2 min read
Updated: Dec. 7, 2023 at 12:11 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
Samourai Wallet, a Bitcoin mobile app wallet, accused Ocean Mining, a decentralized BTC mining pool, of censoring “privacy enhancing transactions” on the blockchain network in an extensive Dec. 7 thread on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
However, Ocean Mining’s top executive retorted that a bug in Samurai’s system caused the problem.
The issue
The BTC wallet provider claimed that the mining pool enacted a policy of censoring Whirlpool Coinjoin transactions and BIP47 notification transactions from Dec. 6. The firm pointed fingers at Ocean Mining’s leadership, including CTO Luke Dashjr and lead investor Jack Dorsey, alleging ‘hostility’ towards its transactions.
According to Samourai, Dashjr’s claim that Whirlpool transactions are non-standard is “totally wrong and a lie” because it is imposing a 46-byte limit on the OP_RETURN function instead of the previous 80 bytes set in Bitcoin Core version 0.12. Samourai Wallet contends that this alteration effectively causes Ocean to exclude privacy-enhancing transactions.
The platform wrote:
“Ocean is choosing to pursue a very slippery slope in their decision to exclude privacy enhancing transactions…Unfortunately the action of Ocean deciding to censor privacy enhancing transactions is yet another example of the dilution of cypherpunk roots of the bitcoin project.”
Consequently, the BTC wallet provider advised miners to reconsider their support for the decentralized pool and redirect their hash power to alternatives.
“If you are currently pointing hashpower at Ocean we would ask you to reconsider and point your hashpower to another pool. It is important for the market to make it absolutely clear to the pool that you do not agree with their privacy enhancing transaction censorship policy,” Samourai Wallet wrote.
Ocean mining responds
In response, Dashjr countered that the issue was due to a bug in Samourai’s system.
Furthermore, the Ocean Mining CTO questioned why Samourai exceeded the 42-byte data carrier size. “What is this data even for? I’ve looked at trying to work around it, but can’t find any technical details,” Dashjr added.
However, he concluded that Samourai should fix the problem on their end since it’s reducing privacy.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that Dashjr has been accused of trying to censor transactions on the BTC network. On Dec. 6, crypto community members likened his attempt to end Ordinals Inscription to censoring transactions on the blockchain network.
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Posted In: Bitcoin, Censorship
Author 
Oluwapelumi Adejumo
Oluwapelumi values Bitcoin's potential. He imparts insights on a range of topics like DeFi, hacks, mining and culture, underlining transformative power.
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