- Seven leading mining pools, including the largest Foundry and AntPool, have joined the Stratum V2 working group to develop a new open standard protocol.
- The new protocol aims to improve communication efficiency, potentially reducing block mining times in a highly competitive environment where milliseconds matter.
- This collaboration supports mining decentralization by creating a standard not controlled by any single operator, giving miners more flexibility.
- Meanwhile, the Bitcoin mining industry faces mounting pressure from a projected rise in network difficulty and soaring energy costs.
- An estimated 20% of miners are currently unprofitable, with hashprice near breakeven levels for many operations.
In May 2026, seven major Bitcoin mining pools announced their collaboration with the Stratum V2 working group to create an industry-wide open standard protocol. This initiative seeks to streamline communication between pool operators and individual miners, a critical factor in the race for block rewards.
Foundries AntPool and Foundry are the two largest pools by hashrate, controlling nearly 30% and 17.7% of the global total respectively, according to Hashrate Index data. “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 stated.
Consequently, developing this open standard helps decentralize an industry that has become increasingly centralized. It also grants miners greater autonomy in selecting block templates.
However, the mining sector confronts significant headwinds from rising operational challenges. The network’s mining difficulty is projected to increase from 132.47 T to 135.64 T in the next adjustment, according to CoinWarz.
Meanwhile, escalating energy costs are squeezing profit margins across the industry. Asset manager CoinShares said up to 20% of Bitcoin miners are currently unprofitable.
The critical profitability metric hashprice has fallen to between $36 and $38 per petahash-second per day. These levels are at or near the breakeven point for many mining operations.
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