Seven major Bitcoin mining pools have joined the Stratum V2 working group to develop an industry-wide open standard protocol used by mining pool operators to communicate with individual miners in their pools.
AntPool, Block Inc, F2Pool, Foundry, MARA Foundation, SpiderPool and DMND all joined the working group to collaborate on the mining pool communication standard, which could reduce the time it takes pools to successfully mine blocks, according to an announcement from Stratum V2.
“Bitcoin mining is competitive and fragmented by design. It is a race for efficiency where a millisecond can determine whether a miner wins a block or loses to a competitor,” the announcement said.
Foundry and AntPool are the two largest Bitcoin mining pools by hashrate, the total amount of computing power deployed by miners to secure the Bitcoin network.
Foundry controls nearly 30% of the global mining pool hashrate, and AntPool controls about 17.7%, according to data from Hashrate Index.
Mining pools broken down by the share of global Bitcoin mining hashrate they control. Source: Hashrate Index
Developing an open standard for Bitcoin mining pools that is not controlled by any one mining pool operator helps decentralize the mining industry, which has become increasingly centralized, while also giving miners greater flexibility in choosing block templates.
Related: Tether launches open-source mining framework to unify Bitcoin infrastructure
Bitcoin mining difficulty is set to rise in the next adjustment, while energy costs soar
The Bitcoin mining difficulty, the relative challenge of adding new blocks to the ledger, is projected to rise again in the next difficulty adjustment in May.
“The next Bitcoin difficulty adjustment is estimated to take place on May 15, 2026, 5:58 PM UTC, increasing the Bitcoin mining difficulty from 132.47 T to 135.64 T,” according to CoinWarz.
Bitcoin mining difficulty continues to increase over the long term. Source: CoinWarz
Rising network difficulty and increasing energy costs are placing additional pressure on the already competitive Bitcoin mining industry.
Up to 20% of Bitcoin miners are unprofitable under current crypto market and economic conditions, according to asset manager CoinShares.
Hashprice, a critical metric for miner profitability, fell to levels between hit $36 and $38/Petahash-seconds per day, which is at near or at breakeven profit levels for some miners, CoinShares said.
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