The latest grant from Square Crypto is funding a Bitcoin developer’s work on software that could improve the pool hash performance of mining collectives.
The pseudonymous developer Fi3 (@ piccioneLibero2 on Twitter or “free pigeon”) is receiving an undisclosed sum to work on an implementation of Stratum V2, the next iteration of Bitcoin mining protocol software developed by Braiins.
“Square Crypto is excited to support the development of a high quality, open source implementation of Stratum v2,” Steve Lee, Square Crypto director, told CoinDesk. “This software benefits miners by maximizing their revenue and providing greater freedom and security.”
“I wanted to work on something that had to do with Bitcoin,” Fi3 told CoinDesk. The Bitcoin developer has already gained experience with the Bitcoin mining industry in collaboration with the Italian mining company Bitminer Factory. Fi3 masters the programming language Rust, which is used to code the upgrade. As soon as they saw the opportunity, they “saw” it.
“I also like the personal freedom this type of grant gives you,” continued Fi3.
Co-author of the proposal, Jan Kvapil, will start implementation in February, Fi3 said.
A mining pool is a collective of miners – from large industrial companies to hobbyists who farm in their basements – who combine their hash power to increase their collective chance of mining a block.
The Stratum software coordinates this pooled mining. The new edition, V2, will fix a handful of vulnerabilities in the 2012 predecessor while improving the connection speed between miners in the pool. In addition, individual Bitcoin miners can have a say in which transactions they want to include in the blocks that mine the pools, which gives individual miners a little more freedom.
Fi3’s goal is to develop and create a Bitcoin improvement proposal (or BIP, code that changes some aspect of the Bitcoin network or protocol) that will pave a clear path to enable the upgrade. Stratum V2 has been in the works for some time, but the grant will fund the changes that will ultimately bring the project to life.
To this end, they will consult with Jan Čapek, the co-founder of Braiins, and former Bitcoin Core developer Matt Corallo, who now works full-time for Square Crypto as a developer on open source projects.
According to Fi3, a Bitcoin core pull request to implement Stratum V2 could be ready in 6 months. This would include a GDP describing activation. After this point, “a proven implementation [of Stratum V2] should be ready, ”said Fi3 in a year.
