Foundry Digital has launched a mining pool for privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash, claiming to have secured roughly 29.2% of the network’s hashrate through partnerships with multiple institutional miners. The company — already the largest Bitcoin mining pool operator — said it created a purpose-built, compliance-focused Zcash solution and has also launched a Zcash block explorer showing the Foundry Zcash Pool has mined 2,344 blocks since the pool went live earlier this month.
Foundry did not name the institutional clients behind its hashrate share. Data from Zcashinfo.com suggests Foundry began accumulating hashrate around March 4, about a week before it publicly announced the pool. Foundry’s rapid rise has cut into the dominance of ViaBTC, whose share of Zcash hashrate fell from 68.1% on Feb. 27 to about 37% at the time of reporting.
Zcash uses proof-of-work mining with blocks mined approximately every 75 seconds. Each block currently pays a subsidy of 1.25 ZEC (about $458 at recent prices). Mining pools aggregate computing power from commercial miners to secure the blockchain and smooth rewards distribution by reducing variance.
The concentration of hashrate among a few pools has been flagged as a security risk in the past — Coinbase warned in September 2023 about ViaBTC’s dominance. Foundry’s entry diversifies pool distribution on the Zcash network.
ZEC has been a strong performer over the past year, rising about 1,050% and rallying roughly 77.2% in the month after Foundry’s initial announcement. Zcash is now the fifth-largest proof-of-work token by market capitalization, at about $6.2 billion, behind Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Monero.