Foundry, the operator behind the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool, is moving into Zcash with an institutional-grade mining pool designed for enterprises and public companies.
Why this matters
- Foundry runs Foundry USA, currently the biggest Bitcoin pool by total hash power. Its new Zcash (ZEC) pool aims to fill a gap in professional mining infrastructure for institutional players that need robust operations, predictable payouts and U.S.-based services.
- “Zcash has matured into an institutional-grade asset, but the mining infrastructure supporting it hasn’t kept pace,” said Foundry CEO Mike Coyler, explaining the rationale for the expansion.
Quick primer: mining pools and Zcash
- Mining pools let distributed miners combine hashing power to increase the chance of winning block rewards and smooth revenue streams—an attractive model for larger organizations that prioritize stability and scale.
- Zcash is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency launched in 2016. Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, which expose addresses and transactions on a public ledger, Zcash offers transaction privacy by default while still enabling blockchain verification when required. The project positions itself as a way to marry financial privacy with compliant infrastructure.
Token mechanics and schedule
- Zcash’s monetary design was forked from Bitcoin’s codebase: miners earn block rewards when they add blocks, the supply grows through mining, halvings occur roughly every four years, and a supply limit is part of the protocol.
- Foundry says its ZEC pool will operate out of the U.S., mirroring the jurisdictional setup of Foundry USA, and is targeted to launch in April 2026.
Industry reaction and network trends
- Zooko Wilcox, Zcash’s founder and chief product officer at Shielded Labs (an independent ZEC support organization in Switzerland), welcomed the move: “We at Shielded Labs are delighted that Foundry—the largest Bitcoin mining pool, and one based in North America—is launching an enterprise-grade Zcash mining pool.”
- The timing follows a notable rise in Zcash network hash rate: BitInfoCharts data shows ZEC hashrate climbed from under 8 Ghash/s in October to over 13 Ghash/s in recent months, signaling renewed mining interest.
Market snapshot
- At the time of the announcement, Zcash traded around $209, down roughly 11% over the past week.
Bottom line
Foundry’s entry brings an institutional operator to Zcash mining—potentially increasing professional mining capacity, uptime and compliance-friendly options for enterprises. If the pool launches as planned in April 2026, it could accelerate institutional participation in ZEC mining amid rising network hash power.
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