The Problem

Mining centralization remains a largely unmitigated tail risk to Bitcoin’s censorship resistance. This risk stems from multiple distinct vectors rather than a single root cause. One is pool centralization, driven by the economic incentive to eliminate payout variance. Another is supply chain concentration, where the manufacturing of mining hardware is effectively monopolized. There is also infrastructural asymmetry, where advantages in energy costs and network latency inherently favor large-scale, geographically specific operations. Because these pressures are structurally independent, no silver bullet exists. Addressing them requires a targeted suite of countermeasures.

Localhost Research depends on the generosity of its donors. Just last year, Mark Casey and Wences Casares helped bootstrap Localhost Research into existence. With our organization established and actively contributing to the ecosystem, we have begun the process of expanding our team and program offerings with the support of the broader Bitcoin community–individuals, corporations, and foundations who all see the value in our work.

This is our second Transparency Report. These reports offer us an opportunity to detail some of the activity our organization has engaged in over the last three months. We hope to surface interesting materials and inspire others to dig deeper into our focus areas and the work which surrounds it.

On May 20th, 2025, Localhost Research was officially recognized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit by the United States Internal Revenue Service. This marks a significant milestone for our organization that we are excited to share with our community.

While we have given you some insight into what our team has been up to as of late, this is our first Transparency Report. As a non-profit dedicated to contributing to the Bitcoin FOSS ecosystem, transparency is fundamental to our mission. We want the world to be able to easily track and learn from our work. We also hope to build a replicable model for other organizations that want to follow in our footsteps. For that reason, we have a transparency page where important organizational documents will be posted in the coming months. Eventually, we’ll even share our Form 1023. We’ve also promised to share a more detailed vision of our organization’s mission with the community. Stay tuned for more on that front.

When a new organization embarks on its journey there are many exciting “firsts.” April has marked a number of firsts for us: it offered to us our first day in the office as well as the first working days of the remaining members of our founding team, Ava Chow and w0xlt. We’re so grateful to have both of these individuals on board and working towards our mission. At the end of April we’ll be publishing our first transparency report with more detail about the current and future focus of these contributors and our organization at large.

It’s been three months since we announced the launch of Localhost Research at TABConf 6.

For Localhost Research, TABConf 6 will retain a special place in our history. In the BitDevs Socratic Village at 10:30AM on Friday October 25th, we made our first public appearance. Of our team, Justin and Murch were present, alongside two of our board members, Mark Casey and Matt Corallo.

Where does our focus lie? As a new organization operating in an adversarial landscape, this is one of the key questions we must answer.

Every so often, an opportunity arises. One that captures your attention and draws you in. For us, the Localhost Research team, we have been lucky enough to find one of those opportunities.