Slipstream provides a simple and transparent way for users to submit permissible non-standard transactions to Mara Pool.
Marathon Digital Holdings, one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies, recently announced the launch of a new service called Slipstream. The product aims to accelerate the processing of complex, non-standard Bitcoin transactions by allowing users to submit them directly to Marathon’s proprietary mining pool – Mara Pool.
Non-standard transactions refer to those that may adhere to Bitcoin’s consensus rules but contain elements not typically found in regular transactions. For example, they may include additional metadata like memos or use sophisticated transaction types like ordinals. Although valid, these transactions are often excluded from the mempools (memory pool) of standard Bitcoin nodes and face delays or rejection.
Slipstream provides a simple and transparent way for users to submit permissible non-standard transactions to Mara Pool. By operating its own pool, Marathon can customize the settings to readily accept a wider range of transaction types. The company believes the new service will benefit sophisticated Bitcoin users who want to experiment with the protocol’s capabilities.
According to Fred Thiel, the Chairman and CEO of Marathon, Slipstream encourages innovation on top of BTC by providing developers and entrepreneurs with a reliable way to add complex transactions to the blockchain. Additionally, Marathon earns additional revenue through transaction fees paid by users who utilize Slipstream. He stated:
“Slipstream is a prime example of Marathon leveraging its proprietary technology stack to create a product or service that we believe can help Bitcoin innovators push the industry forward. While direct transaction submission services exist, most are rudimentary. Slipstream provides sophisticated users with a simple, transparent, and trusted means of adding complex Bitcoin transactions to the blockchain, provided they adhere to Bitcoin’s protocol.”
Concerns Raised about Censorship Risks
While Slipstream’s launch is being welcomed, some people are worried about the possibility of censorship when one entity has the power to decide which transactions are included. Marathon has addressed these concerns by stating that all transactions will be checked by relevant laws and terms of service. This includes rules against copyright infringement, illegal content, and other prohibited uses.
It is important to mention that Marathon has faced criticism in the past for issues related to bugs in its mining pool. Last year, there was an error that caused the company to mine an invalid block, which raised concerns about the security of Bitcoin. However, Marathon later described this event on their X platform as proof that the network can withstand failures by individual miners.
We can confirm that Marathon did mine an invalid block. We utilize a small portion of our hash rate to experiment with our development pool and research potential methods to optimize our operations. The error was the result of an unanticipated bug that came from one of our…
— MARA (@MarathonDH) September 27, 2023
Looking ahead, Marathon plans to expand Slipstream’s capabilities to further support innovation on the Bitcoin protocol. Thiel expressed enthusiasm for assisting developers, entrepreneurs, and companies building on top of Bitcoin. If everything goes well, Slipstream could enable more advanced types of transactions and applications without going against the main values of Bitcoin, such as being transparent, neutral, and resistant to censorship.
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