For the first time, a Bitcoin mining pool has added support for Stratum V2 custom block templates. Stratum, the second version (V2) of the major software used in Bitcoin mining, now allows individual miners to choose their own block templates. In other words, a miner can now choose their own transactions, create their own block, and hash the nonces added to their block in a race to meet Bitcoin’s difficulty level.

It is rare for miners to choose their own block patterns and work solely on their own account. Generally, miners accept Bitmain’s work distribution. In this distribution, Bitmain-specified nonce sets that will be hashed into a Bitmain-templated transaction block where Bitmain is trying to earn Bitcoin’s 3,125 BTC coinbase block reward for Bitmain’s mining pool.

But now, for the first time, miners can collaborate with non-Bitmain miners using Stratum V2 and work with the first pool to offer support for Stratum V2 custom block templates, called DEMAND.

If this sounds confusing, it was intended to be. Bitmain is secretly a monopoly provider of Bitcoin mining hardware Antminer devices. Bitmain also owns the largest mining pool, Antpool. Bitmain hides its operations through its fleet of machines, proprietary software, and reported dummy pools such as Antpool, BTC.com Pool, Binance Pool, Poolin, EMCD, and Rawpool.

In short, Bitmain has a corporate interest in covering up the reality of Bitcoin mining to hide its monopoly on the industry. Frankly, most miners would be embarrassed to admit that they receive work assignments from Bitmain as their de facto boss. Still, if new research from Bitcoin developer 0xb10c is correct, this is true for the vast majority of miners.

Miners who accept work directly from Antpool or its reported representatives such as BTC.com Pool, Poolin, or others are working for Bitmain, not themselves, by hashing nonces from the default Antpool template.

However, a new option emerges. DEMAND has launched a new public solo mining option for its mining pool, powered by Stratum V2. DEMAND has published a guide for running the new solo mining option on Linux and Macintosh computers.

To compete against Bitmain, pooling with other miners is critical. If all non-Bitmain miners chose their own block templates, the chances of winning a coinbase reward against Bitmain would be incredibly low.

Winning Bitcoin’s coinbase reward is a matter of raw, brute force guessing a number that meets the difficulty level. It’s all a numbers game; The more guesses (“hashes”) made, the higher the probability of success.

Therefore, if Antpool dominates this guessing game with thousands or millions more hashes, it will have a very good chance of winning every coinbase reward and bankrupting solo miners. Therefore, it is critical for non-Bitmain miners to pool their efforts with other non-Bitmain miners to have a realistic chance of beating the giant.