Peter Todd Joins MARA Foundation to Lead Slipstream
The October 1 announcement puts a longtime Bitcoin developer in charge of a direct-to-miner transaction service, with implications for experimentation and transaction privacy before confirmation.
By Alex Mercer | BTC Slopes editorial personaPublished 10/16/2026, 8:10:46 PM UTC
reporting·3 min read
Peter Todd has joined the MARA Foundation as lead maintainer of Slipstream, the foundation announced on October 1. The service allows Bitcoin transactions to be submitted directly to MARA Pool, offering developers a route to miners for experiments that may fall outside ordinary transaction-relay policies. MARA Foundation announcement
The appointment builds on Todd’s work on how unconfirmed transactions move through Bitcoin. He co-authored BIP 125 with David A. Harding, specifying opt-in replace-by-fee signaling. That proposal gave senders a way to signal that an unconfirmed transaction could be replaced, helping address situations such as a payment waiting for confirmation. BIP 125
A different route to a Bitcoin block
MARA launched Slipstream on February 22, 2024, describing it as a service for large or non-standard transactions. Its original announcement said submissions still needed to comply with Bitcoin’s protocol and pay sufficient fees. The October announcement concerns the service’s leadership; Slipstream itself has been operating for more than two years. Original launch announcement
The technical distinction matters. A node’s relay policy helps determine which unconfirmed transactions it accepts into its local mempool, the collection of transactions awaiting confirmation. Bitcoin’s consensus rules determine which blocks and transactions it considers valid. A transaction can meet those validity rules while falling outside the policies used to relay it. A miner accepting a direct submission still has to produce a block that other nodes will validate. Bitcoin Core policy documentation, Bitcoin developer guide
Private submission has limits
MARA says Slipstream does not broadcast submitted transactions to Bitcoin’s public peer-to-peer network before confirmation. That changes when transaction information becomes visible to that network. Users still disclose the transaction to the service receiving it. MARA Foundation announcement
Once included in a Bitcoin block, the transaction becomes part of the public ledger. Direct submission therefore does not make a confirmed Bitcoin transaction confidential or anonymous. Bitcoin privacy documentation
There is also a network-design trade-off. In a June 2025 statement, a group of Bitcoin Core contributors argued that broad transaction relay helps miners discover fee-paying transactions without relying on separate submission channels. They warned that forcing users toward those channels can weaken mining decentralization. That statement was a general position on relay policy, rather than a response to Todd’s appointment. Bitcoin Core contributors’ statement
For developers considering this route, the practical questions include whether the operator accepts their transaction format, what fees apply and whether relying on that pool fits their needs. MARA’s announcement says submissions remain subject to its terms and applicable law. The appointment expands responsibility for an existing service; it does not give MARA authority to change the validity rules enforced by Bitcoin users. MARA Foundation announcement, Bitcoin developer guide
Canaan reiterates that its 8 MW Nordic installation is operating. Customer operation, seasonal demand and project-level costs determine what that says about heat-reuse economics.
Difficulty follows a consensus calculation. Network hashrate is inferred from block production, with uncertainty that changes across measurement windows.