What Bitcoin Did Is Bitcoin Losing Its Miners to AI? | Nacho Pauls
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Oct 22, 2026 
Nacho Pauls, Chief Commercial Officer at OCEAN and a veteran Bitcoin mining executive, discusses the painful split involving Luke Dashjr and Mechanic, the fallout from BIP110, and OCEAN’s fight to give miners more control. They explore mining centralization, Chinese pool influence, AI’s growing pull on major miners, stranded energy, hybrid facilities, and the industry’s high-stakes road to the 2028 halving.
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Ocean Lets Miners Build Their Own Blocks
- Ocean differs from conventional pools by letting miners build blocks, select transactions, and control signaling rather than merely contribute hashpower.
- Nacho admits Ocean leaned toward BIP110 but argues the miner, not the pool, should decide where compute points.
Mining Centralization Creates Several Attack Surfaces
- Mining centralization has multiple layers: concentrated energy, dominant pools, and hardware manufacturers with disproportionate market power.
- A government regulating a pool controlling roughly half the network could restrict transaction inclusion and undermine Bitcoin’s censorship resistance.
ASIC Manufacturers Can Shape Mining Economics
- Bitmain’s dominant ASIC share gives it influence over product launches, pricing, and potentially the timing of more efficient machines.
- Nacho argues mining centralization extends beyond pools into the hardware supply chain itself.