Bitcoin Core contributor Peter Todd has joined the MARA Foundation as lead maintainer of Slipstream, the miner's private Bitcoin mempool service. The appointment puts a veteran protocol developer in charge of a tool that shields transactions from the public network before they confirm.
Peter Todd, a longtime Bitcoin Core contributor, has joined the MARA Foundation as lead maintainer of Slipstream, the foundation announced on Thursday. Todd will be responsible for developing and running the service going forward.
Slipstream lets users send bitcoin transactions directly to MARA Pool, the company's mining pool, bypassing Bitcoin's public peer-to-peer network entirely. Because transactions stay private until they confirm in a block, the service keeps key information, including users' public keys, hidden until that point.
The service became useful after hackers exploited Coldcard hardware wallets in July, stealing over $115 million in user funds. Slipstream first drew attention in 2024 for publishing large Ordinals inscriptions, and more recently the mempool has been used for research projects including Quantum Safe Bitcoin and Binohash, a way to emulate covenants without a soft fork.
Todd previously co-authored BIP 125 for replace-by-fee transactions, created OpenTimestamps, and in 2024 launched Libre Relay, a Bitcoin Core fork with looser relay rules for non-standard transactions. He said the new role lets him use Slipstream as a proving ground for experimental development: According to Todd: "I most look forward to seeing what's possible on Bitcoin."
He argues that mempool policy should follow what the market wants miners to mine, rather than restrict how people use Bitcoin.
Source: Bitcoin Magazine
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
