cryptobriefing.com
Foundry Digital announced plans to launch an institutional-grade mining pool for Zcash in April 2026, expanding its mining infrastructure beyond Bitcoin.
The new pool will target institutional and public company miners and is designed to address what Foundry describes as a gap in compliant infrastructure supporting Zcash mining.
The company said the pool will replicate the compliance, transparency, and operational framework used in its flagship Foundry USA Pool, currently the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool by hashrate.
Zcash launched in 2016 as a privacy-focused cryptocurrency built on zero-knowledge proof technology. The protocol allows transactions to be verified on a public blockchain while shielding sensitive information such as wallet addresses and transaction amounts.
Zcash has matured into an institutional-grade asset, but the mining infrastructure supporting it has not kept pace, said Mike Colyer, CEO of Foundry. With the launch of our Zcash pool we are bringing the same compliance, transparency, and operational excellence that made Foundry USA Pool the trusted standard for Bitcoin miners.
Zooko Wilcox, founder of Zcash and current Chief Product Officer of Shielded Labs, said the launch could help decentralize Zcash mining by spreading hashpower more broadly across pools and attracting additional miners to the network.
The Foundry Zcash pool will operate from the United States and include compliance-focused infrastructure, transparent payout systems, real-time reporting tools, and dedicated operational support for miners.
Since launching in 2019, Foundry has become a major infrastructure provider for institutional Bitcoin miners. Its Foundry USA Pool holds the largest share of global Bitcoin mining hashrate and maintains SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance standards.
ZEC, the native token of Zcash, experienced renewed interest during the last bull market, surging more than 1800% from August 2025 to a high of nearly $734 reached in November 2025. The token has since fallen roughly 70% from that peak and was trading about 5% lower on the day near $212.