In an interview with Fortune, Foundry CEO Mike Colyer says the decision to add Zcash to its operations comes in response to growing interest in so-called privacy coins from large institutions. By launching the new pool, Foundry is betting that institutional miners, which include several public companies, will allocate part of their resources to producing Zcash. This in turn reflects a view by some crypto analysts that large financial organizations, which have amassed digital assets portfolios worth billions of dollars, will embrace Zcash, whose network excels at keeping transactions private.

The first part of the bet already appears to be working. Foundry, which is a subsidiary of billionaire Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group, said in a statement that its new Zcash pool has seen rapid and sustained growth from multiple institutional mining customers, and that the pool already accounts for nearly a third of new Zcash production.

Zcash is currently around the 15th biggest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of approximately $6.3 billion, which is tiny compared with Bitcoin’s $1.5 trillion market cap or the $270 billion of second place Ethereum, but still significant. Notably, the price of Zcash has jumped over 75% in the past 30 days compared with a rise of around 7% in the overall crypto market. The rapid price increase came after Foundry announced the pending launch of the new pool in early March.

Zcash launched in 2016 and is the brainchild of a developer named Zooko Wilcox, who sought to build a Bitcoin-like network that made it easier to conceal transactions. The Zcash blockchain can do this thanks to a technology known as zero-knowledge proofs that allows a user to verify a transaction is true without seeing identifying details. And unlike privacy coin rival Monero, Zcash’s architecture allows for selective disclosure, which makes it more appealing to banks and other large institutions that seek to safeguard client transactions while also complying with regulatory demands.

Like Bitcoin, Zcash also relies on a so-called proof-of-work network. The term describes a blockchain system that requires participants to show they have skin in the game by expending electricity in order to contribute to the network and receive a reward. This contrasts with blockchains like Ethereum and Solana that require network validators lock up collateral, a system known as proof-of-stake.

Made in the USA

Foundry’s emergence as the dominant Bitcoin mining pool operator is notable since, for more than a decade, the industry was dominated by Chinese concerns like AntPool and BTC.com. In 2021, however, Foundry was able to capitalize on an anti-crypto crackdown in China and once again put the U.S. at the center of global Bitcoin production.

Foundry does not engage directly in Bitcoin mining, which entails the use of specialized computers known as rigs, and large amounts of electricity, to solve random math problems generated by the blockchain. Instead, Foundry operates a pool that lets participants share in the collective proceeds, providing companies with a predictable cash flow in the process. The company also functions as a service hub for the miners, helping with the financial, legal, and compliance aspects of the business.

All of this, says Colyer, furthers the goal of ensuring the U.S. maintains strategic influence over Bitcoin at a time when the currency is becoming an important geopolitical asset. In this context, he says, Foundry, which is headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., is helping safeguard the integrity of the Bitcoin network, and ensuring it remains decentralized.

“The vision was that nation states would be miners someday,” notes Colyer, and that it was crucial that China, America’s geopolitical rival, did not continue to dominate both the production of Bitcoin pools and mining hardware.

Foundry’s primary success on this front has been building a pool that is approximately 40% bigger than that of its biggest rival. But the company also plays a critical role in helping its U.S. mining partners obtain new machines with advanced chips that can compete in an industry where older rigs fast become obsolete.