Seven of the most important names in bitcoin mining formally joined the Stratum V2 Working Group this week, signaling the clearest business shift but towards miner-controlled transaction choice.
Key Takeaways:
- Antpool, F2pool, Foundry, and 4 others joined the Stratum V2 Working Group on Might 7, 2026.
- Stratum V2 provides miners as much as 7.4% greater profitability by means of decrease latency and higher charge seize.
- Braiins and Spiral based the Working Group in 2022, now coming into a brand new deployment section in 2026.
7 Bitcoin Mining Swimming pools Again Stratum V2 as Miners Push for Block Template Management
Antpool, F2pool, Foundry, Spiderpool, Block Inc., MARA Basis, and DMND are actually a part of the hassle to advance the open mining protocol commonplace. The announcement was revealed by Pavlenex on the Stratum V2 Working Group’s official website.
Stratum V2 replaces Stratum V1, a push-based protocol launched in 2012 by Marek “Slush” Palatinus that grew to become the business default however was by no means designed as a proper commonplace. V1 left swimming pools in full management of transaction choice, ran in plaintext, and uncovered miners to hashrate hijacking and surveillance.
The newer protocol addresses these issues. It makes use of end-to-end authenticated encryption, cuts bandwidth use by roughly 60% on the pool facet and 70% for miners, and introduces a Job Declaration sub-protocol that lets miners construct their very own block templates as an alternative of accepting what swimming pools assign.
In line with the official announcement, “By sustaining Stratum V2 as a public, vendor-neutral specification, we take away compatibility boundaries and permit the ecosystem to give attention to what issues most: bettering effectivity, privateness, safety, and miner autonomy, in the end resulting in elevated profitability.”
Actual-world assessments from Braiins present miners can seize as much as 7.4% greater profitability by means of quicker template supply, decrease latency, and improved charge choice when operating V2 natively.
Antpool CEO Andy Zhou stated the corporate is “proud to help the broader adoption of Stratum V2,” including that aligning round an open, interoperable commonplace lets the business collaborate on effectivity, safety, and decentralization. Spiderpool CTO Kenway Wang famous the protocol helps miner-constructed templates, that are particularly helpful for operators in bandwidth-constrained environments.
Braiins Pool and DMND are already operating Stratum V2 in manufacturing. DMND launched in 2025 as one of many first swimming pools to supply full miner-selected templates. Blitzpool runs it for solo miners, and the Stratum V2 Reference Implementation group pool continues testing.
The Working Group was based in 2022 by Braiins and Spiral, Block’s Bitcoin expertise arm. The group has operated for greater than 4 years as an impartial open-source group and is now coming into “a brand new section of accelerated growth and deployment” with the addition of large-scale operators.
Foundry, Luxor, and Antpool had every made prior testing commitments or ready infrastructure earlier than this announcement. The seven new additions symbolize tens of exahashes per second of mixed hashrate, a determine that issues as a result of roughly 5 swimming pools at the moment management about 70% of worldwide hashpower and subsequently most block content material.
For particular person bitcoin miners, the sensible shift will depend on when these swimming pools allow V2 entry for customers. Translation proxies already permit Stratum V1 firmware to connect with V2 swimming pools with out requiring {hardware} or firmware upgrades, which reduces the barrier to adoption.
