Miners build the block. Miners keep the rBTC.
For more than a decade, mining pools have done two things that, on reflection, miners should have been doing themselves: choosing which transactions go into a block, and collecting the merge mining rewards. Today, with Rootstock Labs, we are closing both of those gaps at the same time.
On DMND, any miner can now construct their own Bitcoin block template, choose the Rootstock merge mining commitment, and receive the rBTC reward directly to their own address. Both the decision and the reward sit with the miner. The pool steps back to what a pool should actually do: account shares, smooth variance, and stay out of the way.
We believe this is the first time a pool has combined the two. Other pools that merge mine Rootstock today collect rBTC at the pool and redistribute it through FPPS. The big pools that joined the Stratum V2 working group last week have signalled intent, but they have not yet shipped miner built templates in production. On DMND, you can do it right now.
What actually changed
The mechanism is Stratum V2 Job Declaration. Under SV2 JD, the miner runs a Job Declarator Client that constructs the block template locally. The pool's Job Declarator Server validates the work, accounts shares, and pays out. The miner picks the transactions. The miner picks the merge mining commitments. The miner signs the coinbase output.
We extended that surface to Rootstock. If a miner who is constructing their own template wants to merge mine RSK, they include the Rootstock commitment in their coinbase and the rBTC reward lands at an address the miner controls. There is no opt in beyond running SV2 JD through DMND. There is no revenue share. There is no pool wallet sitting in the middle.
Why this matters
Pool controlled templates are a known Bitcoin centralization vector. A handful of pool operators decide which transactions get into the next block. That concentration is bad for Bitcoin on its own. For Rootstock, it compounds: a sidechain secured by merge mining inherits whatever centralization exists in the merge mining layer above it. If three pools decide what goes into Bitcoin blocks, those same three pools effectively decide what secures Rootstock.
Returning both template construction and merge mining reward capture to the miners doing the actual work fixes both problems at the same point in the stack.
One product change. Two chains decentralized.
This also changes the economics for individual miners. Rootstock pays roughly 79 to 80 percent of transaction fees to miners, in rBTC, pegged 1 to 1 with BTC through the PowPeg. With more than 200 dApps now live on Rootstock, that fee flow is no longer hypothetical. Miners on DMND get direct exposure to it, with the same hash power, the same hardware, the same electricity.
What this means if you mine on DMND
If you are already on DMND and running SV2 Job Declaration, you do not need new firmware, new rigs, or a new contract. You can opt in to building your own templates and including the Rootstock commitment. The rBTC reward goes to the address you specify. We never touch it.
If you are mining elsewhere and you want exposure to RSK fee flow on your own terms, this is a reason to take a serious look at us. The infrastructure cost of switching is small. The structural difference is large.
About Rootstock
Rootstock was the first Bitcoin sidechain to go live, in 2018. It was built by a group of Argentinian cypherpunks and bitcoiners who wanted to extend Bitcoin's capabilities to the people who needed them most. Today it is secured by a majority of Bitcoin's hash power through merge mining and supports a growing ecosystem of more than 200 applications across DeFi, infrastructure, and payments, with BTC as the network's core asset. Bitcoiners, builders, and institutions are using Rootstock to put the hardest money on earth to work: BTC collateralized lending, stablecoins, onchain capital markets.
A Bitcoin sidechain is an independent, parallel blockchain that uses BTC as its core asset and is cryptographically and economically connected to the main Bitcoin network. The concept was introduced by Blockstream in 2015. Rootstock has been running it in production for almost a decade.
The shape we are building toward
Pools used to construct the block and collect the rewards. Miners contributed hashrate to decisions they did not make and to revenue they did not see. We do not think that is what a pool should be.
A pool should aggregate variance and account shares. The miner should pick the block and earn the rewards. Today's release is one more step toward that shape, on two chains at once.
If you want to build your own block and earn rBTC directly, come mine with us.