Foundry Digital’s recently launched Zcash (ZEC) mining pool captured approximately 29% of the network’s total hashrate in the month since it went live, a consolidation rate that rivals that of ViaBTC, the former dominant pool, which took much longer to establish.
The pool went public in April 2026 after Foundry announced the initiative on March 11, onboarding institutional miners ahead of the public launch.
Hashrate capture speed is the signal worth looking at. Foundry didn’t jump into Zcash mining, it came in and immediately held roughly the same share that ViaBTC had built as the historic leader, sitting at around 30% of the network’s hashrate before Foundry entered.
- Hash capture: Foundry’s Zcash pool captured about 29% of the network’s hashrate in the month after its launch, according to company data and new block explorer Zcashinfo.com.
- Background of the Zcash network: Zcash’s total hashrate increased from 8.1 GSol/s to 13.8 GSol/s since early September 2025 before Foundry’s entry, with ViaBTC previously holding ~30% dominance.
- Pool structure: The pool uses a PPLNS payment model, distributes rewards via transparent ZEC addresses, applies KYC/AML controls and requires no minimum hashrate, a deliberate institutional access design.
- Compliance infrastructure: Foundry’s pool reflects the SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance framework of Foundry USA Pool, its dominant Bitcoin mining operation.
- Launch of Zcashinfo.com: Foundry has released a dedicated Zcash block explorer alongside the pool, providing real-time hashrate distribution, pool rankings, and mining difficulty tracking.
- What to watch: Whether Foundry’s share continues to climb beyond 30% – the threshold at which the risk of centralization becomes a live debate over network security – is the next data point that matters.
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What does a 29% hashrate capture in one month really mean for the security of the Zcash network?
A single pool controlling 29% of a PoW network’s hashrate is not dangerous in itself, but it concentrates block production risk in a way that requires monitoring.
At 29%, Foundry cannot unilaterally execute a 51% attack, but it is close enough to the threshold that any further organic growth will change this calculation.
The fact that ViaBTC was already at around 30% before Foundry launched means that the network now has two pools each holding around three-tenths of the total hashrate. This is a different concentration structure than that which existed six months ago.
Foundry Zcash Pool is officially live! Since our announcement last month, we have seen rapid hashrate growth reaching approximately 30% of the network hashrate. Institutional miners seek compliant, purpose-built solutions $ZEC infrastructure, and we are proud to achieve it.
In addition,… pic.twitter.com/GOXyKrqhhH
– Foundry (@FoundryServices) April 13, 2026
Foundry Zcash Pool is officially live! Since our announcement last month, we have seen rapid hashrate growth reaching approximately 30% of the network hashrate. Institutional miners seek compliant, purpose-built solutions Foundry CEO Mike Colyer described the launch as an infrastructure gap game: Zcash has “become an institutional-grade asset, but the mining infrastructure that supports it has not kept pace.”
The data supports the hypothesis that Zcash’s hashrate growth from 8.1 GSol/s to 13.8 GSol/s since September 2025 reflects growing miner interest that existing pool infrastructure was not designed to accommodate on an institutional scale.
What Foundry has built operationally stands out in its compliance architecture. The pool’s PPLNS payment model, mandatory KYC/AML checks, SOC 1 and SOC 2 audit equivalence, and 24/7 US-based support are not features designed for hobbyist miners.
No minimum hashrate requirement means the access floor is low, but compliance overhead indicates this targets miners who need defensible regulatory positioning, with the same institutional cohort generating the volume on Foundry USA Pool in Bitcoin.
Zooko Wilcox, founder of Zcash and now Chief Product Officer at Shielded Labs, addressed the centralization angle directly: “This will expand Zcash’s mining hash power from its current concentration in a single pool, and we hope it will attract new Zcash miners who trust Foundry to operate a high-quality service. »
This framework treats Foundry’s entry as a decentralization event relative to ViaBTC’s prior dominance. It depends on how Foundry’s share stabilizes. If it exceeds 35%, the narrative reverses.
The data shows rapid institutional integration. This implies pre-existing demand from miners who were waiting for a compliant US-based option, not that Foundry made the hashrate from scratch.
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