Amid the continuing merge mining debate within the Dogecoin group, co-founder Billy Markus gives a non-partisan tackle the topic. Merge mining, or Auxiliary Proof of Work (AuxPoW), permits customers to mine two or extra cash, together with Dogecoin, with the identical hashpower and proof-of-work with out splitting.
Markus, who goes by “Shibetoshi Nakamoto” on X, believes eradicating merge mining is pointless and shouldn’t be achieved.
as a non-dev who has no funding in any scrypt altcoins and simply thinks proposals ought to remedy precise crucial issues and never random made up ones for self-serving causes, i discover this reply disingenuous
eradicating merge mining is pointless, so it should not be achieved
— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) July 20, 2026
Markus shares this standpoint as a non-developer who has no funding in any scrypt altcoins. It ought to be famous that Markus has been out of growth work on Dogecoin since 2014.
Dogecoin was launched in late 2013 by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. Palmer created the Dogecoin.com web site whereas Markus labored as a solo developer on the primary 4 releases. In 2014, each Palmer and Markus left the event efforts, whereas a Dogecoin Core Improvement workforce was fashioned, which has been sustaining and growing Dogecoin since then.
Scrypt altcoins, within the context of what the Dogecoin developer wrote, consult with cash that assist merge mining, together with Dogecoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, and several other others. Litecoin and Dogecoin stay the most important and most worthwhile mixture.
Markus as soon as revealed promoting all of his crypto in “one clip”; this included 50 Bitcoin, 440 Litecoin, and 6 million Dogecoin, with nothing left. If this nonetheless stands, it leaves him with no investments in scrypt altcoins, together with Dogecoin and Litecoin.
‘Dumb and pointless’
The latest dialogue round merge mining within the Dogecoin group has attracted differing opinions, with most in assist. Supporters of the present mannequin consider that merge mining permits miners to maximise their mining rewards.
In an earlier response on X, Markus maintained that Dogecoin ought to keep merge mined and that shifting it off could be dumb and pointless.
Dogecoin and Litecoin applied merge mining in August 2014. Earlier than this time, Dogecoin confronted potential safety dangers as a consequence of its smaller hashrate, making it weak to 51% assaults as a result of fewer miners secured the community.
