Peter Todd, a notable figure in the Bitcoin community, has joined the MARA Foundation as the lead maintainer of Slipstream, a private Bitcoin mempool service for miners.
The appointment was officially announced by the foundation on Thursday, confirming Todd’s responsibilities in developing and overseeing the service.
Slipstream enables users to transmit Bitcoin transactions directly to MARA Pool, the company’s mining pool, circumventing Bitcoin’s public peer-to-peer network. This feature proved particularly valuable following a security breach in July, during which hackers exploited vulnerabilities in Coldcard hardware wallets, resulting in the theft of over $115 million in user funds.
Given that transactions routed through Slipstream remain confidential until confirmed in a block, the service effectively safeguards sensitive information prior to confirmation, thereby protecting users’ public keys from exposure.
Todd expressed his enthusiasm for the potential of Bitcoin, stating, “I most look forward to seeing what’s possible on Bitcoin — using Slipstream as a proving ground for experimental development and protocol innovation.”
He further remarked, “Working with Slipstream is a natural complement to my work on Libre Relay, and my mempool policy work more broadly. I’ve always believed that Bitcoin is more effective when protocols are designed with economic demand in mind. This is also an excellent opportunity to foster connections between Bitcoin Core developers and miners.”
MARA’s Slipstream initially garnered attention in 2024 for facilitating large Ordinals inscriptions. Recently, it has been leveraged for research projects such as Quantum Safe Bitcoin and Binohash, which aims to emulate covenants without necessitating a soft fork.
Todd is an established contributor to Bitcoin Core, having co-authored BIP 125 (replace-by-fee), developed OpenTimestamps, and in 2024, launched Libre Relay— a Bitcoin Core fork that features more lenient relay rules for non-standard transactions.
He advocates that mempool policy should align with market demand, allowing miners to pursue greater flexibility in how Bitcoin is utilized, rather than imposing restrictive practices.
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