Seven Bitcoin mining pools have joined the Stratum V2 working group to build an open standard for how pools communicate with individual miners. AntPool, Block Inc, F2Pool, Foundry, MARA Foundation, SpiderPool, and DMND are now collaborating on the protocol, according to reports.
The standard could cut the time it takes pools to mine blocks successfully. Bitcoin mining is a race for efficiency. A millisecond can decide whether a miner wins a block or loses to a competitor.
Hashrate concentration
Foundry and AntPool control the largest shares of global Bitcoin mining hashrate. Foundry holds nearly 30% of the network’s computing power. AntPool controls roughly 17.7%. That concentration has grown in recent years.
| Pool | Hashrate Share |
|---|---|
| Foundry | 30.0% |
| AntPool | 17.7% |
| Others | 52.3% |
An open standard not controlled by a single pool operator pushes back against that centralisation. It also gives miners more flexibility in choosing which block templates to work on, rather than relying entirely on the pool operator’s selection.
Rising difficulty, falling margins
The Bitcoin mining pools adopting Stratum V2 are doing so as mining difficulty climbs again. The next difficulty adjustment is projected for 15 May 2026, lifting the difficulty from 132.47 terahashes to 135.64 terahashes, according to CoinWarz data.
Difficulty has been rising over the long term. Energy costs are rising too. That combination is squeezing margins across the industry. Asset manager CoinShares estimates that up to 20% of Bitcoin miners are currently unprofitable.
Hashprice, the daily revenue per petahash of mining capacity, has fallen to between $36 and $38 per petahash-second. That is breakeven or near-breakeven territory for some operations, CoinShares said. Miners running older rigs or paying above-market rates for power are the ones getting squeezed out.
The protocol race
Individual miners in a pool must use block templates provided by the pool operator under the current structure. Stratum V2 is designed to decentralise that process whilst maintaining the efficiency gains that come from pooling resources.
The protocol is open-source. No single pool controls the standard. The working group includes the two largest pools by hashrate, which gives the protocol legitimacy across the industry. Whether smaller pools adopt it will depend on whether the efficiency gains materialise and whether the protocol can scale without introducing new attack vectors.
The mining industry has consolidated around a handful of large pools over the past five years. That centralisation creates a systemic risk if any single pool operator is compromised or acts against the network’s interests. Stratum V2 does not solve that risk entirely, but it redistributes some control back to individual miners.
What happens next
The working group is now developing the standard. Implementation timelines have not been disclosed. Adoption will be gradual. Pools will need to upgrade infrastructure. Miners will need to upgrade firmware. The Bitcoin mining pools involved control a combined majority of global hashrate, which means adoption could move faster than previous protocol upgrades if the economic incentives align.
Next difficulty adjustment: 15 May 2026. That is the next pressure point.
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