Foundry's Zcash Pool: A Compliant Bridge for Institutional Privacy

ROCHESTER, NY – March 11, 2026 – Foundry Digital LLC, the operator behind the world's largest Bitcoin mining pool, is charting a new course into the realm of digital privacy. The company has announced plans to launch an institutional-grade mining pool for Zcash in April 2026, a move designed to bridge the gap between the robust confidentiality of privacy-focused assets and the stringent compliance demands of institutional finance.

This initiative addresses what the company calls a “critical gap in the Zcash mining landscape,” which has historically lacked the purpose-built, compliant infrastructure necessary to attract and support large-scale, publicly-traded, and institutional miners. By extending its operational expertise from Bitcoin to Zcash, Foundry aims to provide a regulated and transparent on-ramp for a new class of investors into one of the market's premier privacy coins.

“Zcash has matured into an institutional-grade asset, but the mining infrastructure supporting it hasn't kept pace,” said Mike Colyer, CEO of Foundry, in the official announcement. “At Foundry, our mission is to empower decentralized infrastructure that strengthens the digital asset ecosystem, and we believe Zcash plays a critical role in advancing financial privacy.”

The Institutionalization of Privacy

Launched in 2016, Zcash pioneered the use of zero-knowledge proofs, a cryptographic technology that allows transactions to be verified on a public blockchain without revealing sensitive information like sender and receiver addresses or transaction amounts. This unique capability offers true fungibility and financial privacy, features that are increasingly attracting institutional interest.

Recent market trends underscore this growing appetite. In 2025, Zcash saw a remarkable surge in interest, with its price increasing by 248% in October of that year. More telling was the dramatic rise in the use of its core privacy feature; the proportion of Zcash supply held in private, or “shielded,” addresses jumped to 30%, a threefold increase from 10% in 2024. This flight to privacy indicates that users, including larger entities, are actively seeking to protect their financial data on-chain.

Further validating this trend, a newly established Zcash Open Development Lab secured over $25 million in seed funding in March 2026 from prominent venture capital firms including Paradigm, a16z crypto, and Winklevoss Capital. This influx of capital signals renewed institutional confidence in Zcash's underlying technology as a critical component for the next generation of finance.

Navigating a Complex Regulatory Landscape

Foundry's “compliance-first” approach arrives at a pivotal moment, as global regulators intensify their scrutiny of privacy-enhancing cryptocurrencies. The regulatory environment is a patchwork of tightening rules and cautious acknowledgments.

The European Union, for instance, is set to enforce its Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR) on July 1, 2027, which will effectively ban anonymous crypto wallets and privacy coins like Zcash from regulated platforms. Similarly, its MiCA framework will mandate transaction disclosures for privacy coin users by late 2025.

In the United States, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) classifies privacy coin network operators as money transmitters, subjecting them to Bank Secrecy Act regulations that require strict AML policies and reporting. While the U.S. Treasury acknowledged in a March 2026 report that privacy tools can serve “legitimate financial privacy purposes,” it remains focused on mitigating illicit use. Jurisdictions like Japan, South Korea, and Dubai have already moved to delist or ban privacy coins altogether.

It is within this challenging context that Foundry's strategy becomes clear. The company plans to build its Zcash pool on the same institutional-grade framework as its Bitcoin operation, Foundry USA Pool, which is SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 compliant. These independent audits verify robust controls over security, transparency, and reporting—standards that are non-negotiable for public companies and institutional clients navigating the regulatory maze.

A Strategic Expansion Beyond Bitcoin

This venture is a significant strategic expansion for Foundry, which has cemented its dominance in the Bitcoin mining ecosystem. Consistently holding around 30-35% of the total Bitcoin network hashrate, Foundry USA Pool is the undisputed global leader. The move into Zcash mining diversifies the company's offerings and reinforces its position as a premier provider of critical infrastructure for the entire digital asset industry.

Foundry's Zcash pool will be based in the United States, a key feature designed to mitigate counterparty risks for domestic institutions. The company is promising a suite of services tailored for enterprise clients, including transparent and auditable payout methodologies, a robust technology stack engineered for scale, and 24/7 dedicated support from an experienced operations team.

By replicating its successful Bitcoin model for a leading altcoin, Foundry is not only expanding its own market but also potentially setting a new industry standard. If successful, this could pave the way for other privacy-focused or alternative cryptocurrencies to attract similar institutional-grade services, accelerating their maturity and adoption.

Reshaping Zcash Network Health

The introduction of a major, compliance-focused pool is also poised to have a profound impact on the health and decentralization of the Zcash network itself. Currently, the Zcash mining landscape is concentrated among a few large pools, with data showing that pools like ViaBTC and F2Pool control significant portions of the network's total hashrate. Such concentration can introduce potential risks to network security and censorship resistance.

Zooko Wilcox, the founder of Zcash and Chief Product Officer of Shielded Labs, welcomed Foundry's entry as a positive development for network decentralization. “We at Shielded Labs are delighted that Foundry—the largest Bitcoin mining pool, and one based in North America—is launching an enterprise-grade Zcash mining pool,” Wilcox stated. “This will spread out the Zcash mining hashpower from its current concentration in a single pool, and hopefully it will bring in new Zcash miners who trust Foundry to operate a high-quality service.”

By providing a trusted, U.S.-based, and highly compliant option, Foundry could attract new hashrate from institutional players who were previously hesitant to engage with existing pools. This infusion of new and diversified miners would not only enhance the network's security by distributing mining power more widely but also strengthen the overall resilience and integrity of the Zcash ecosystem for all its participants.