Foundry Digital is preparing to enter the Zcash mining market with a new institutional-grade pool scheduled to go live in April 2026. The launch is being presented as a compliance-focused answer to a part of the mining market that has remained difficult for public companies and regulated operators to access with confidence.
Rather than building a generic pool, Foundry is positioning the service around auditability, transparent payouts, and operational controls designed for institutional counterparties. The core idea is to bring the same reporting discipline and process standards that helped define Foundry’s Bitcoin mining business into a Zcash environment that has historically lacked that type of infrastructure.
A compliance-first model for Zcash mining
Foundry’s approach is built around the framework it already uses in Bitcoin mining. The company says it will apply strict KYC and AML onboarding, run the operation from the United States, and route payouts to transparent, non-shielded Zcash addresses through a PPLNS structure that can support accounting, reporting, and audit review.
That design is meant to solve several practical obstacles at once. Opaque mining pools, limited auditability, and the regulatory sensitivity around privacy-focused assets have all made it harder for larger pools of capital to participate in Zcash mining at scale. By emphasizing visible payout flows and identity checks at the pool level, Foundry is trying to make the activity easier to fit inside institutional control frameworks.
The operational pitch also leans heavily on the company’s existing track record. Foundry, which says its Foundry USA pool controls roughly 30% to 31% of global Bitcoin hashrate, is using its Bitcoin mining infrastructure as the credibility layer for this Zcash expansion. The company is not framing the launch as a view on Zcash as an asset, but as an effort to extend a tested operating model into another mining market.
Mike Colyer, Foundry’s chief executive, described the initiative as part of the company’s broader mission to support decentralized infrastructure while also arguing that Zcash remains important in the privacy segment of digital assets. His message was that the new pool will carry over the same compliance, transparency, and operational discipline that defined Foundry’s Bitcoin pool.
Why the launch matters for miners and auditors
For miners, the attraction is straightforward. A single pool with formal onboarding, centralized reporting, and operational service levels can reduce overhead and make participation easier for firms that need cleaner internal controls. For auditors and compliance officers, the appeal is similar, since a single counterparty with documented processes can simplify oversight and financial reporting.
The more difficult question is whether the model will gain traction in a network built around privacy as a defining feature. Foundry’s structure asks institutional participants to accept a trade-off, preserving Zcash’s broader protocol identity while making payout activity visible enough to satisfy audits and compliance reviews. That balance will likely determine how much regulated capital is actually willing to enter the space.
The April 2026 rollout will therefore be more than a product launch. It will be an early test of whether institutional miners are prepared to adopt a compliance-first framework for a privacy-focused asset, and whether that decision can materially change participation, liquidity, and capital flows in Zcash mining.