Major Bitcoin Mining Pools Back Open Block Construction Protocol

Several of the world's largest Bitcoin mining pools—including Foundry, AntPool, F2Pool, SpiderPool, and MARA Pool—have announced their participation in the Stratum V2 working group. According to reports, these pools together control nearly three-quarters of the total Bitcoin network hashrate.

The adoption of the Stratum V2 protocol marks a notable development in how Bitcoin mining operates. Stratum V2 is designed to give more power to individual miners by allowing them greater control over which transactions are included in the blocks they mine, instead of this decision being made solely by the pool operators.

This move is expected to improve miner autonomy and could enhance network security by decentralizing the block construction process. However, the transition and its broader impact on the Bitcoin ecosystem will require further observation. The participation of so many high-hashrate pools could accelerate the protocol’s adoption, but as with any technical upgrade, challenges may arise during implementation.