The Digital Currency Group is set to make changes to its Bitcoin mining operation as it faces funding difficulties, largely due to its affiliate Genesis going bankrupt following dealings with FTX.
Generating Revenue
While Genesis has reached an agreement with creditors, including DCG, the parent company is planning to sell the subsidiary. DCG is still struggling and is searching for new ways to generate income.
Foundry USA, a Bitcoin mining subsidiary of DCG, will begin charging for its services from mid-April. Foundry had been free to use since it launched in 2019, quickly becoming the world’s largest mining pool by computing power.
Currently, Foundry controls 33.49% of the global Bitcoin mining pool, followed by F2Pool with 14.06%, and Binance Pool with 11.16%, according to btc.com.
DCG has announced Foundry’s new business model will be a tiered subscription service, with fees varying per quarter depending on the previous quarter’s hash rate.
“As the Foundry USA Pool continues to scale, we are implementing tiered fees that will further allow us to expand our feature set and continue operating within our FPPS [Full Pay Per Share] payout model. The pricing tiers for each quarter will be based on the previous quarter’s average hash rate – a measure of computing power.”
While disappointing for some users, most mining pool services charge a fee, meaning Foundry is only doing what other providers have already done. However, it is unclear what price current users will have to pay for Q1 when the new model comes into effect on April 19-22.
