Dominance of mining giants: foundry and Antpool control more than half of the bitcoin network

Dominance of mining giants: foundry and Antpool control more than half of the bitcoin network

Today, the two largest mining companies, Foundry USA and Antpool, have become huge players in the Bitcoin (BTC) mining industry, together controlling 56.7% of the cryptocurrency's total hashrate. This development is crucial in the digital currency mining industry, as both pools reveal their strength by confirming more than half of all blocks created.

Foundry, part of Digital Currency Group (DCG), the world's largest digital asset firm, has seen dramatic growth in recent months. Since the start of 2024, its hashrate has increased by an impressive 75 exahash per second (EH/s), reflecting its aggressive expansion. On the other hand, Antpool continues to grow steadily, maintaining its strong position as the second largest mining pool with an average hashrate.

To date, the total hashrate of the bitcoin network is around 651 EH/s. Over the past three days, Foundry has contributed approximately 215.79 EH/s and its weekly average has stabilized at 199.02 EH/s. Antpool, as the second largest player, recorded 153.55 EH/s over the same period with an average of 162.55 EH/s over the last seven days.

This leap in Foundry's hashrate is underlined not only by their expansion but also by the rise in transaction fees, which has led to higher profitability in their mining.

The block production history shows that Antpool has the most blocks mined with a total of 89,726. F2pool is second with 86,915 blocks, while Foundry, although it has seen a significant increase recently, has only 41,987 blocks mined so far. However, given its rapid rise, Foundry is quickly gaining ground and can be expected to have an increasingly strong position in the mining sector in the future.

This situation speaks to the concentration of power in Bitcoin mining and suggests that the dominance of a few companies may have far-reaching consequences for the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem.

*This is not investment advice.