Seven Major Bitcoin Pools Join Stratum V2 Group

Seven major Bitcoin mining pools, including AntPool, Block Inc., F2Pool, Foundry, MARA Foundation, SpiderPool, and DMND, have joined the Stratum V2 working group to develop an open standard protocol for communication between pool operators and individual miners. The announcement, posted on the working group's site, signals a push for greater efficiency and decentralization in the sector.

The protocol, known as Stratum V2, aims to replace Stratum V1, which has been the industry standard since 2012. Stratum V1 transmits data in plaintext, exposing it to eavesdropping and manipulation, and gives pools sole control over block templates, which determine transaction inclusion in blocks. Stratum V2 introduces end-to-end encryption, reduces bandwidth usage by up to 60 percent on the pool side and 70 percent for miners, and allows individual miners to construct their own block templates while pools handle reward distribution. These changes could cut latency in block discovery and boost miner profitability by as much as 7.4 percent through faster template delivery and better fee selection, according to real-world tests by Braiins.

The working group was founded in 2022 by Braiins and...