Mining pools have been at the heart of Proof of Work blockchains since their introduction in 2010 by Slush. Pools allow miners to combine their hash power to increase the collective probability of finding a block which serves to stabilize their income. They help equalize the playing field for solo miners and allow easier management of large mining farms.
While mining pools are great for all the reasons mentioned above, they do have significant drawbacks, many of which contradict the original ethos of blockchain itself. By far the most common pool implementation on Bitcoin (and many other chains) is Stratum v1 (introduced in 2010). While v1 greatly improved mining infra, it also introduced centralizing forces that are now ingrained in a majority of pools today. The pool implementation delegates the process of selecting which transactions are included a block to a node generally run by the pool operator rather than the grinders providing hash power to the pool. This gives power to the delegated node to potentially censor transactions and allocate grinder’s hash power as they see fit.
Centralization in this regard has been a hot topic among crypto natives, but has yet to create an issue - likely because of the sheer amount of hash on the chain and network aligned actors. While Bitcoin has the benefits of massive hash and a cultish community, Quai Network is still in its infancy and has yet to establish its hashrate. Because of this, centralization of mining pools may be possible with pooling software like Stratum V1.
All of this yields the question: are there plans for Quai Network to implement a more decentralized pooling implementation that resolves the issues of Stratum V1 to kill censhorship and centralization?
