Foundry Digital Captures 30% of Zcash Hashrate with New Mining Pool Launch

Foundry Digital, the dominant force in Bitcoin mining by hashrate, has officially entered the Zcash (ZEC) market. The New York-based firm announced the launch of its Zcash mining pool, which has rapidly scaled to control approximately 30% of the network's total hashrate. The expansion follows an initial announcement in March, with several institutional miners joining the pool prior to its public release. To support the launch, Foundry introduced Zcashinfo.com, a comprehensive block explorer designed to track hashrate distribution, pool rankings, and mining difficulty in real time. Zcash utilizes the Equihash algorithm and a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, similar to Bitcoin, but with a faster block production cycle of roughly 75 seconds. The network is distinguished by its use of zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs), allowing for private transactions on a public ledger while maintaining a capped supply of 21 million coins. The entry of a major institutional player like Foundry brings professional-grade infrastructure to Zcash mining. The pool employs a pay-per-last-N-shares (PPLNS) reward model and is specifically targeting regulated institutional participants for further onboarding. Separately, the firm disclosed an attempted extortion effort by a criminal group following data access incidents affecting roughly 2,000 accounts. The firm indicated that it is working with law enforcement to resolve the matter.