History Made: DMND Pool and GoMining Complete First Stratum V2 Block With Custom Transaction Template

A significant milestone in Bitcoin mining infrastructure was reached when DMND mining pool successfully produced the first known Bitcoin block built using the Stratum V2 protocol's Job Declaration feature. The historic block — number 955,318 — was mined on behalf of GoMining, marking the first documented instance of a miner independently selecting its own transactions and constructing its own block template in a live production environment.

Traditionally, Bitcoin mining pools have maintained full control over block construction. When miners contribute their hash power to a pool, the pool itself determines which transactions are bundled into each block. Individual miners have had no influence over this process — a setup that has long raised concerns about centralization and potential transaction censorship.

Stratum V2 directly challenges this model. The open-source protocol, developed with widespread backing across the Bitcoin industry, enables miners to continue participating in pooled mining — preserving the income-smoothing benefits pools provide — while simultaneously reclaiming the authority to assemble their own block templates. The Job Declaration mechanism is central to this: a miner proposes its own block template, the pool reviews and validates it, and the miner's chosen configuration proceeds to production.

GoMining leveraged this mechanism to include transactions originating from GoBTC Pay, an open-source, non-custodial Bitcoin instant payments protocol the company unveiled at Consensus Miami in May 2026. This made the mined block not just a technical first, but a practical demonstration of a miner using Stratum V2 to directly power its own product through blocks it helped construct.

"A miner just mined the first Stratum V2 block to power their own product end to end," said Alejandro De La Torre, CEO and co-founder of DMND. "GoMining declared the template and included their GoBTC Pay payments with no pool in the way. We built DMND for exactly this."

GoMining CEO Mark Zalan emphasized the structural importance of the achievement. "For years, mining pools have determined which transactions are included in Bitcoin blocks," he stated. "By being the first to declare our own block template and include GoBTC Pay transactions, we're demonstrating one of the practical capabilities that Stratum V2 makes possible."

The broader implications of this development extend well beyond a single block. The question of who controls transaction selection in Bitcoin mining has been a persistent concern within the community, touching on both censorship resistance and the distribution of network power. If Stratum V2 gains wider adoption, individual miners — rather than centralized pools — would become the primary decision-makers on what enters the blockchain.

DMND's successful live deployment removes a key practical barrier to that broader transition, demonstrating that the protocol operates reliably in real-world conditions. The pool has positioned itself as purpose-built for the Stratum V2 era, with Job Declaration already running in production.

GoMining, which boasts a user base of five million and ranks among the top ten Bitcoin miners globally by hashrate, operates data centers both within the United States and internationally. In addition to its mining infrastructure, the company offers tokenized hashrate products alongside payment and earnings tools — making this Stratum V2 milestone a direct extension of its broader product ecosystem.