On Monday, Foundry Digital, the operator behind the globe’s largest Bitcoin mining pool, introduced its Foundry Zcash Pool. The new venture has already attracted several institutional mining customers and has secured approximately 29% of the Zcash network’s hashrate since its March announcement, according to on-chain data. This expansion marks a significant foray into privacy-centric cryptocurrency mining beyond Bitcoin. Mike Colyer, CEO of Foundry, highlighted the launch as filling an essential infrastructure void in the Zcash ecosystem, which experienced notable value growth last year.
“Launching Foundry Zcash Pool is the culmination of years dedicated to creating trusted institutional infrastructure, a responsibility we’re eager to uphold within the Zcash community,” Colyer stated. He emphasized that Zcash provides critical verifiable financial privacy on a transparent blockchain.
In addition to the mining pool’s launch, Foundry also introduced Zcashinfo.com, a new block explorer for Zcash users. This platform allows users to track transactions and access ecosystem data, including statistics from various mining pools.
“I’m pleased that Foundry is bringing its institutional reliability and long-term dedication to Zcash,” commented Zooko Wilcox, founder of Zcash and Chief Product Officer at Shielded Labs. “Their mining pool and the Zcashinfo.com explorer significantly bolster Zcash’s infrastructure.”
Foundry USA Pool currently accounts for about 29% of Bitcoin production across all mining pools, based on data from Hashrate Index. The firm’s new Zcash pool has quickly claimed a comparable share in that network amid another surge in its value.
Launched in 2016, Zcash (ZEC) is known for its privacy-centric features enabled by zero-knowledge proof technology. Last fall, it saw an impressive rise from approximately $50 to nearly $700 per coin within two months. Despite recent declines alongside Bitcoin and other leading assets, ZEC has experienced a resurgence, outperforming most major coins with a 73% increase over the past month, reaching around $354. This includes a 42% hike in just one week.
However, traders on Myriad—a prediction market platform managed by Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan—have turned bearish regarding ZEC’s short-term prospects. They now estimate only a 23% likelihood of Zcash reaching $420 within April, down from a previous 63% probability last Friday.