Foundry Digital, one of largest Bitcoin mining pools by hashrate, said it plans to introduce a zcash (ZEC) mining pool by next month, expanding beyond BTC and bringing a large institutional operator into the privacy-focused network.

With the new pool, Foundry aims to offer zcash miners a U.S.-based platform designed around compliance checks, reporting standards and operational controls often required by public companies and large firms.

The move addresses what Foundry describes as a gap in Zcash infrastructure. While the cryptocurrency has existed for nearly a decade, much of its mining ecosystem still consists of smaller global pools that often operate outside formal compliance frameworks.

“Zcash has matured into an institutional-grade asset, but the mining infrastructure supporting it hasn’t kept pace,” Foundry CEO Mike Colyer said in a statement shared with CoinDesk.

Betting on privacy

The expansion comes as privacy-focused cryptocurrencies regain attention across the market as new crypto tax reporting rules, with threat of asset seizure, kicked in across the European Union at the turn of the year and as onchain analysis keeps developing, leading to growing demand for financial anonymity.

Zcash, along with other privacy coins including monero (XMR) and dash (DASH) has seen renewed interest that has helped their prices surge. ZEC has seen significant outperformance, up more than 670% in the last 12 month period, compared XMR’s 72% rise in the same period, while DASH is up 51%.

ZEC’s outperformance can likely be attributed to its hybrid privacy model, which makes shielded – completely anonymous – transactions optional with selective disclosure. This means that transactions can be transparent for custody and exchanges, and attracted accumulation from a Winklevoss-backed treasury firm as well as into the Grayscale Zcash Trust.

Foundry’s shift toward zcash also likely reflects broader changes in mining economics. Bitcoin mining profitability has tightened following the 2024 halving, which cut block rewards in half while mining difficulty surged.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Coyler pushed back on the idea the move is primarily a response to lowering bitcoin margins.

“We evaluate opportunities based on where institutional infrastructure is needed, not on bitcoin margins at any given moment,” he said. “Foundry’s bitcoin mining business is strong and remains our core foundation.”

The expansion, Coyler said, was over an identified gap in compliant Zcash infrastructure. “Institutional and public miners who want exposure to zcash have had no US-based, compliant, purpose-built infrastructure to do it through,” he added.

As for whether the move shows a broader multi-chain strategy, Coyler said the company’s focus is “squarely on bitcoin and zcash” for now, though he added that Foundry is “always evaluating opportunities” that align with its mission and the demands of institutional miners.

While the price of bitcoin saw a major rise to near $125,000 late last year, its price has since corrected to now stand at $69,500. That has seen hashprice, a measure of expected value of 1TH/s of hashing power a day, drop from over $60 to $30 per petahash.

As margins shrink, many large mining firms have begun exploring other proof-of-work networks to diversify revenue.

Zcash mining infrastructure

Zcash launched in 2016 as a privacy-focused cryptocurrency built on zero-knowledge proof technology. The network allows users to send transactions on a public blockchain while keeping key details private. Using a cryptographic method known as zk-SNARKs, Zcash can verify that a transaction is valid without revealing the sender, receiver or amount involved.

Like Bitcoin, the Zcash network relies on proof-of-work mining to secure its blockchain and miners use specialized hardware to solve complex mathematical puzzles to help secure the network. When a miner or mining pool solves one of these puzzles, it adds a new block of transactions to the chain and earns a reward in newly issued ZEC tokens along with transaction fees.

Zcash blocks are produced about every 75 seconds, faster than bitcoin’s blocks which are produced every 10 minutes. Still, both shared a supply cap of 21 million coins. The mining process uses an algorithm called Equihash, which differs from Bitcoin’s SHA-256 and was designed to require large amounts of memory during computation.

Network difficulty, which helps the time between block production remain consistent, means the probability of solving a block alone is low. As a result miners bundle together in what are known as mining pools, in which participants combine computing power and share rewards based on how much work they contribute. Large pools can influence the stability and decentralization of a network because they control significant portions of its total hashrate.

Foundry’s zcash pool

Foundry said its zcash pool will include identity verification checks for participants through rigorous know-your-customer and anti-money laundering compliance, transparent payout calculations and reporting tools aimed at institutional users. It'll feature a dedicated support team and its operations will be based in the United States.

The company plans to apply the same operational framework used by its bitcoin pool, which has undergone SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance audits, it said.

Mining rewards will be distributed through transparent Zcash addresses, not shielded ones, the company said. The pool will be paying miners on a Pay Per Last N Shares (PPLNS) model, which Coyler said is “fully auditable” and provides detailed data supporting daily payment reconciliation.

Foundry didn’t disclose the fee for miners, saying only it will offer “competitive pool fee rates.” There will be no minimum hashrate threshold to join the pool, Coyler said, noting that the Zcash mining ecosystem is still emerging.

The company expects demand from miners that already operate in regulated environments such as North America. Many of those firms rely on formal reporting systems and compliance programs to meet corporate governance requirements.

If the zcash pool launches on schedule in 2026, it would mark one of the largest institutional entries into the Zcash mining ecosystem to date. Other major mining pools operating within it include F2Pool, 2Miners, and ViaBTC.