Foundry Digital Launches Zcash Mining Pool

Crypto mining pool operator Foundry Digital has launched a pool for the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash, which the company says has secured nearly 30% of the Zcash network hashrate through partnerships with multiple institutional mining clients.

“Institutional and public miners are seeking a compliant, purpose-built Zcash mining solution,” Foundry said on Monday, a month after announcing its plan to create the Foundry Zcash Pool.

Foundry, which is also the largest mining pool on the Bitcoin blockchain, did not disclose which institutional miners it had onboarded to reach a 29.2% hashrate share.

Mining pools secure proof-of-work blockchains by pooling computing power from commercial miners and others to share rewards proportionally with the aim of reducing variance.

Foundry added that it launched a Zcash block explorer, which shows that the Foundry Zcash Pool has mined 2,344 blocks since it launched earlier this month.

Zcash blocks are mined roughly every 75 seconds, paying a block subsidy of 1.25 Zcash (ZEC) tokens in reward for solving blocks, which equates to about $458 at current market prices.

While Foundry said it launched the Foundry Zcash Pool earlier this month, Zcashinfo.com data suggests that it started accumulating hashrate on or around March 4, about a week before it was first announced.

Foundry’s rise in hashrate share has cut into ViaBTC’s dominance, which has fallen from 68.1% on Feb. 27 to 37% at the time of writing.

Related: Dash Evolution chain integrates Zcash Orchard privacy pool

Crypto exchange Coinbase flagged ViaBTC’s hashrate dominance as a security risk to the network in September 2023. 

ZEC has been one of the better-performing cryptocurrencies over the last year, rising 1,050%, including a 77.2% rally over the last month following Foundry’s initial announcement.

It is now the fifth-largest proof-of-work token at $6.2 billion market cap, trailing Bitcoin (BTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and competitor privacy coin Monero (XMR).

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