Antpool Surges Past Foundry in Bitcoin Mining Race

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Antpool, affiliated with Bitmain, has surpassed Foundry as the largest Bitcoin mining pool by monthly blocks mined since January 2022. In November, Antpool successfully mined 1,219 blocks, edging out Foundry’s 1,216 blocks, according to MinerMag.

This achievement has resulted in a total reward of 8,672 BTC for Antpool’s miner clients, with an additional 83.6 BTC earmarked for refunds.

Foundry’s dominance in the mining pool hierarchy has been largely unchallenged since early 2022, following the migration of mining operations to North America after China’s crypto crackdown. However, Antpool’s hash rate began to close in on Foundry around June.

This shift aligns with Bitmain’s substantial import of Antminer S19XP and S19XP Hydro rigs to its US subsidiary in Georgia, totaling over 37 EH/s in hash rate.

While the exact contribution of these imports to Antpool’s hash rate is not fully transparent, Bitmain faced internal challenges, including a temporary halt in employee paychecks due to issues with miner deployment.

Despite Antpool’s recent lead in blocks mined, BTC.com’s data indicates that their self-reported real-time hash rate still trails behind Foundry’s, raising questions about potential underreporting or the influence of luck variance on mining success.

In 2021, Bitmain announced plans to spin off Antpool. Bitmain made this move to focus its efforts on designing and manufacturing mining hardware while allowing Antpool to operate as an independent entity.

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