Foundry plans Zcash mining pool amid institutional interest in privacy coin

Digital asset infrastructure company Foundry Digital plans to launch a mining pool for Zcash in April 2026, expanding beyond Bitcoin mining infrastructure. The company said the pool will be designed for institutional and publicly traded miners seeking compliance-focused mining services.

The new pool will be based in the United States and built on the same infrastructure used by Foundry USA Pool, which is operated by the company. Foundry said the service will include reporting tools and payout systems intended to meet the operational requirements of institutional miners.

Zcash is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency which features an encrypted ledger using zero-knowledge proofs. A mining pool is a service that allows multiple miners to combine computing power and share block rewards, increasing the chances of earning consistent payouts.

A spokesperson for Foundry told Cointelegraph that the company decided to build a the new mining pool because “Zcash addresses something we believe is genuinely important: the idea that financial privacy is foundational to economic freedom, and that privacy and compliance can coexist.” They added: 

Foundry Digital was founded in 2019 and provides mining infrastructure and related services for digital asset companies. Its Foundry USA Pool is one of the largest Bitcoin mining pools by hashrate share. Foundry said it expects the Zcash pool to begin operations in April 2026.

The announcement comes days after developers who previously worked at Electric Coin Company raised more than $25 million to continue developing a privacy-focused wallet for Zcash. 

Related: Dash Evolution chain integrates Zcash Orchard privacy pool

Zcash garners attention amid price volatility

Zcash, launched in 2016, allows users to send transactions without publicly revealing details such as wallet addresses or transaction amounts. The network is based on Bitcoin’s codebase but uses zero-knowledge proofs, known as zk-SNARKs, to enable optional “shielded” transactions alongside standard transparent ones.

In 2025, Zcash became one of the most widely discussed privacy-focused assets in crypto, with comments from industry figures, including Arthur Hayes, Naval Ravikant and Mert Mumtaz, helping drive interest in the network and its native token, ZEC (ZEC).

The rally pushed Zcash up nearly 600% over the past year, climbing from below $35 in March 2025 to as high as $698.87 on Nov. 16, 2025, according to CoinGecko data. The token has since pulled back, falling 58.7% year-to-date from about $512 on Jan. 1 to roughly $212 at the time of writing.

Zcash price over one year. Source: CoinGecko

Even with the renewed attention, the network’s mining activity remains concentrated among a small number of pools.

Data from Poolbay shows ViaBTC controlling about 31.7% of total hashrate, followed by F2Pool at roughly 15.8%, with smaller shares distributed across pools such as 2Miners and Antpool.

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