During the recent Unbounded Perspectives event in Austin Kurt Wuckert Jr, Founder and CEO of Gorilla Pool, presented his company’s services and operations as an exclusive BSV blockchain mining pool. The presentation included ARC, Metanet and one of Gorilla Pool’s newest products called Jungle Bus.
To start his presentation, Wuckert Jr gave a brief overview of the process of Bitcoin mining. Transactions are broadcasted to the network and collected by nodes, which are computers that gather the data.
Using an ASIC miner, individuals compete to find valid proof of work and build a block. The block is then propagated and proposed to the network. If accepted, the miner receives the coins in the subsidy and the fees associated with that block.
Wuckert Jr then explains Gorilla Pool operates giant data servers (nodes) which serve as the infrastructure for their mining pool. The pool allows collective hash power to solve problems together, and payouts are distributed based on the amount of hash contributed. This includes offering hosting services and mobile data centres.
Wuckert Jr emphasises the efficiency of Gorilla Pool’s ASIC computers and highlights the need for both hashing infrastructure and classic server infrastructure for validating transactions and propagating blocks. He notes the specialisation required for running a Bitcoin node and encourages outsourcing such operations to their company.
He mentions their global presence with ASIC manufacturing in Asian countries and mining operations in various locations, including Quebec, Washington State, North Carolina, Miami, Texas, and Europe. The distributed nature of their operations ensures resilience against political, geographic, or weather-related factors.
Jungle Bus – Companies building on BSV no longer need to run a full node
Wuckert Jr. highlights the importance of finding companies that are genuinely skilled in mining Bitcoin and building infrastructure around it. He criticises various Bitcoin mining companies, stating that many of them are fake and have not been profitable in mining Bitcoin. He then discusses the challenges posed by the Bitcoin network and the need for reliable and cost-effective data access and a new product by Gorilla Pool which aims to achieve this in that regard – Jungle Bus.
Jungle Bus aims to provide logical and efficient access to blockchain data and defines logic for different protocols and offers decentralised data access in a documented manner. He explains that Jungle Bus both simplifies and reduces costs for businesses:
‘Instead of running a full BSV node at a cost of, you know, maybe a thousand bucks a month plus whatever it takes to have a sysadmin, we make sure that your data is up all the time and that the data is good.’
‘That’s what’s already a lot of money right there. You can pay us something like $15 a month to sync just the data you need and keep it on your own system and have API access to our nodes,’ he said.
This approach eliminates the need for running a full node and provides reliable data access with reputation, guarantees, and potential insurance. Wuckert Jr explains that Jungle Bus is a unique product among mining pools that no competitor offers at the moment. It is a proprietary solution for utilising blockchain data effectively in business operations.
Metanet & ARC – Becoming an ISP on Bitcoin
Wuckert Jr explains the concept of the Metanet, which is an overlay network on top of BSV blockchain that functions similarly to the Internet. This network allows the encryption and transmission of data packets through Bitcoin transactions, providing enhanced security and the potential for faster data transfer.
He compares their vision to being an ISP (Internet Service Provider) for Bitcoin. He describes that users will in future be able to utilise Bitcoin in a similar way to high-speed internet access provided by companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.
However, Wuckert Jr mentions that there are current challenges and limitations in existing solutions. To address this, Gorilla Pool has tested Bitcoin service ARC, which is a high-power transaction engine designed to be more efficient than existing solutions. ARC has a built-in tumbler that rebroadcasts transactions to their node and the rest of the Bitcoin network, ensuring data integrity and mitigating potential issues.
Wuckert Jr notes that this product is not yet widely deployed or understood by other companies and is being developed in collaboration with the Bitcoin Association and will eventually be open source. He added that Gorilla Pool is currently the only one capable of running this product effectively.
Wuckert Jr closed his presentation by pointing out that Gorilla Pool offers assistance in building app stacks, suggesting suitable wallets and protocols, and providing reliable customer support. He emphasises their commitment to showcasing the true potential of Bitcoin and invites anyone interested in working with them to contact them at any time.