22 February 2024
Marathon Digital Holdings, the largest publicly traded bitcoin miner by market capitalization, has launched Slipstream, a service for individuals to easily submit complex and non-standard transactions to the Bitcoin network. Slipstream is the first instance of a public bitcoin mining company facilitating direct transaction submission services, made possible by the fact that Marathon operates its own proprietary mining pool, Mara Pool.
According to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine, non-standard Bitcoin transactions are often excluded from submission to Bitcoin nodes’ mempools despite their adherence to consensus parameters. These transactions, such as those associated with Ordinals and inscriptions, were already possible, but Slipstream aims to facilitate this process with a user-friendly and formalized process for direct submission.
Marathon CEO Fred Thiel: “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.”
Thiel also noted the importance of this venture to support innovation and experimentation on Bitcoin: “We believe Slipstream is mutually beneficial for the industry and for our organization, and we look forward to building on this announcement to further assist those who are building on Bitcoin.”