Peter Todd has joined the MARA Foundation as lead maintainer of Slipstream, a private Bitcoin mempool service connected to MARA Pool, the company’s mining pool. The foundation announced the appointment on Thursday and said Todd will be responsible for developing and running the service.
Transactions sent directly to MARA Pool
Slipstream lets users send Bitcoin transactions straight to MARA Pool without routing them through Bitcoin’s public peer-to-peer network.
According to Bitcoin Magazine, the service was useful after hackers exploited Coldcard hardware wallets in July, stealing more than $115 million in user funds. Because transactions sent through Slipstream remain private until they are confirmed in a block, the setup helps keep key information hidden before confirmation and reduces exposure of public keys.
Todd says Slipstream can serve as a testing ground
Todd said, "I most look forward to seeing what’s possible on Bitcoin — using Slipstream as a proving ground for experimental development and protocol innovation."
How MARA has used Slipstream
Slipstream first drew attention in 2024 when MARA used it to publish large Ordinals inscriptions. More recently, it has been used in research projects including Quantum Safe Bitcoin and Binohash, described as a way to emulate covenants without a soft fork.
Todd’s background in Bitcoin development
Todd is a longtime Bitcoin Core contributor. He co-authored BIP 125, the replace-by-fee proposal, created OpenTimestamps, and in 2024 launched Libre Relay, a Bitcoin Core fork with looser relay rules for non-standard transactions.
He has argued that mempool policy should track what the market wants miners to mine, rather than restrict how people use Bitcoin.
This story first appeared in Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Mathew Di Salvo.