Foundry adds 200 exahashes per second to secure Rootstock through merge mining.
Foundry to earn 79% of Rootstock’s transaction fees without extra energy costs.
Foundry, the world’s leading Bitcoin mining pool by hashrate, has announced its plans to implement “merge mining” to bolster Rootstock’s security, enabling additional computational power to be contributed to the Bitcoin layer-2 network without increasing energy consumption.
Big news for Bitcoin: Foundry, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool, is now merge mining Rootstock!
With over 80% of Bitcoin’s total hash rate securing Rootstock, Bitcoin’s DeFi layer just got even stronger.
Welcome to the family @FoundryServices. pic.twitter.com/VRiuTF7vsF
— Rootstock (@rootstock_io) February 6, 2025
Big news for Bitcoin: Foundry, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool, is now merge mining Rootstock!
With over 80% of Bitcoin’s total hash rate securing Rootstock, Bitcoin’s DeFi layer just got even stronger.
Welcome to the family .
— Rootstock (@rootstock_io)
Foundry Brings Extra Protection to Rootstock Transactions Through Merge Mining
Merge mining is a process that allows miners to mine two or more cryptocurrencies at the same time as long as they share a common hashing algorithm. What this means is that Foundry may continue to secure the Bitcoin network while also securing Rootstock in a way that increases overall efficiency and earnings without any extra work.
To achieve this, however, the giant miner says it will inject 200 exahashes per second into Rootstock, taking its total throughput to 740 EH/s, an amount nearly 80% of the total computing power that currently secures the Bitcoin network.
In any case, Foundry believes that the move will make Rootstock transactions much more secure, reducing risks like cyberattacks or double spending.
A Win-Win Situation
Rootstock may be benefiting greatly from this new arrangement, but so is Foundry. The miner may have secured a new revenue stream, given that any miners who choose to merge mine with Rootstock receive 79% of Rootstock’s transaction fees in rBTC, Rootstock’s version of Bitcoin. The upside to this is that the extra income comes at no additional electricity costs since it already runs Bitcoin mining operations.
In more detailed terms, Rootstock will also leverage Foundry’s strong mining power to become a safer and more reliable platform for smart contracts.
Meanwhile, it might be worth noting that Foundry has some broader ambitions tied to this decision to diversify its operations. Bitcoin layer-2s like Rootstock aim to make Bitcoin useful beyond its status as a mere store of value. So, with added security from Foundry’s mining power, Rootstock is guaranteed to become a stronger platform for financial applications, decentralized exchanges, and other blockchain-based services. That is, as it combines the strong security of Bitcoin with smart contract functionality, thereby bringing more use cases to the Bitcoin network.
In the end, this partnership appears well poised to boost Bitcoin’s ecosystem, particularly in the areas of security and scalability.