Individual miners in Bitcoin mining pools must rely on block templates provided by the mining pool operator. Seven major Bitcoin mining pools have joined the Stratum V2 working group to develop an industry-wide open standard protocol used by mining pool operators to communicate with individual miners in their pools. AntPool, Block Inc, F2Pool, Foundry, MARA Foundation, SpiderPool, and DMND all joined the working group to collaborate on the mining pool communication standard, which could reduce the time it takes pools to successfully mine blocks, according to an announcement from Stratum V2. “Bitcoin mining is competitive and fragmented by design. It is a race for efficiency where a millisecond can determine whether a miner wins a block or loses to a competitor,” the announcement said. Foundry and AntPool are the two largest Bitcoin mining pools by hashrate, the total amount of computing power deployed by miners to secure the Bitcoin network. Foundry controls nearly 30% of the global mining pool hashrate, and AntPool controls about 17.7%, according to data from Hashrate Index. Mining pools broken down by the share of global Bitcoin mining hashrate they control. Hashrate Index Developing an open standard for Bitcoin mining pools that is not controlled by any one mining pool operator helps decentralize the mining industry, which has become increasingly centralized, while also giving miners greater flexibility in choosing block templates.