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Open-Source Blockchain Explorer Scores Foundry Development Grant
While small in dollar terms, the grant represents an investment in the further decentralization of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Updated Apr 10, 2024, 3:21 a.m. Published Aug 5, 2021, 1:00 p.m.
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Foundry, a provider of services to cryptocurrency miners in North America, has donated 1 BTC (about $40,000) to fund the development of mempool.space, an open-source Bitcoin blockchain explorer.
While small in dollar terms, the grant represents an investment in the further decentralization of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Other crypto startups, ranging from the lender Nexo to the Kraken exchange, have supported open-source software developers to strengthen the networks underpinning their businesses.
Block explorers are like special goggles, they let members of the public easily see what is happening on cryptocurrency networks without having to download and parse gigabytes of data. But they are typically hosted by centralized services like Blockchain.com or Etherscan, an arrangement that reintroduces the risk inherent in trusting third parties that Bitcoin was designed to avoid. To address that problem, mempool.space, a project run out of Japan, lets users run their own local versions of its block explorer.
Foundry said mempool.space is particularly appealing for miners because it shows the fees that senders have offered to pay for transactions awaiting confirmation and models what the next block may look like based on the mempool (a sort of waiting room for Bitcoin transactions).
Read more: Bitcoin Developer Jonas Schnelli Receives Open-Source Grant
Foundry joins Jack Dorsey's payments unicorn Square, the Winklevoss brothers' crypto exchange Gemini and hardware wallet maker Exodus in supporting the open-source blockchain explorer.
In addition to the grant, Foundry, based in Rochester, N.Y., said it would help build mining-related features for the mempool.space website and an "open transaction acceleration marketplace."
Foundry is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which also owns CoinDesk.
Read more: Nexo Grants $150K to Brink for Open-Source Bitcoin Development
Mempool Space K.K., the operator of the eponymous website, also runs block explorers for the Liquid sidechain and the Bisq decentralized exchange, according to its terms of service, which include a rather pointed bitcoin maximalist disclaimer.
"Unfortunately, the liquid.network and bisq.markets explorers cannot be considered Bitcoin Only, as they may display altcoins as part of their core network functionality. We do not endorse any altcoins and encourage you to stay Bitcoin Only," the document states.
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Bitcoin's mining concentration just showed up in a rare 2-block reorg
A 2-block reorg at height 941,881 saw Foundry's chain overwrite blocks from AntPool and ViaBTC, coming days after mining difficulty dropped nearly 8%.
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- Foundry USA, Bitcoin's largest mining pool, briefly produced seven consecutive blocks on Monday, triggering a rare two-block chain reorganization that orphaned valid blocks from AntPool and ViaBTC.
- The incident, which the network resolved as designed by favoring the chain with the most cumulative proof of work, underscores how shrinking industry margins are concentrating hashrate into fewer, larger mining pools.
- While a two-block reorg does not threaten Bitcoin's overall security, growing hashrate concentration increases the odds that a single pool will mine multiple blocks in a row and create short-lived competing chains when blocks are found nearly simultaneously.
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