Mining has become a heavily centralized industry, not necessarily due to the ownership of actual mining hardware being concentrated, but because of the central dependency on large mining pools to actually coordinate with other miners. This presents a problem on multiple fronts. Pools custodying miners funds gives them the ability to withhold payments and coerce actual miners to behave or act a certain way. The two largest pools require KYC information before allowing someone to mine with them. Large pools can actively censor transactions if they choose, or were mandated to by governments, using the hashrate of their customers. 

Pools are a necessary piece of the Bitcoin network, as…

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