Bitcoin Miners Rebel Against Stratum V2

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Seven titans of the bitcoin mining world, once bound by the chains of old protocols, now march toward a new dawn of miner autonomy, their gears grinding with the promise of 7.4% more profit.

  • Key Takeaways:

  • Antpool, F2pool, Foundry, and four others joined the Stratum V2 Working Group on May 7, 2026, as if signing a pact with the devil-only this time, the devil’s name is efficiency.
  • Stratum V2 whispers sweet nothings to miners: 7.4% more profit, lower latency, and a chance to pick their own transaction fruits. But who’s really in charge here?
  • Braiins and Spiral, the original architects of this digital gospel, now watch as their creation grows beyond their control, like a seed planted in fertile soil.

  • 7 Bitcoin Mining Pools Back Stratum V2 as Miners Push for Block Template Control

    Antpool, F2pool, Foundry, Spiderpool, Block Inc., MARA Foundation, and DMND now stand shoulder to shoulder with the Stratum V2 Working Group, a coalition as fragile as a desert mirage. The announcement, penned by Pavlenex, reads like a manifesto for the oppressed.

    Stratum V2 is the new sheriff in town, replacing the archaic Stratum V1-a protocol so outdated it still runs on plaintext and dreams of a time when miners were mere pawns. V1, the old guard, let pools hoard transaction selection like kings of a crumbling empire, while miners were left to scavenge for scraps of hashrate.

    The new protocol, however, offers a glimmer of hope: end-to-end encryption, bandwidth cuts, and a Job Declaration sub-protocol that lets miners build their own block templates. It’s like giving a miner a shovel and a map-except the map is written in code, and the shovel is a GPU.

    According to the official announcement, “By maintaining Stratum V2 as a public, vendor-neutral specification, we remove compatibility barriers…” Translation: “Let’s all play nice, or else.” The result? A more efficient, private, and secure ecosystem-assuming the miners don’t accidentally mine their own wallets.

    Real-world tests from Braiins show miners can capture up to 7.4% higher profitability through faster template delivery. But let’s not get too excited-7.4% is just enough to buy a cup of coffee, or a single block reward in a world where coffee costs a million satoshis.

    Antpool CEO Andy Zhou claims the company is “proud to support the broader adoption of Stratum V2,” as if the miners’ autonomy is a gift from above. Spiderpool CTO Kenway Wang adds that the protocol is a “lifesaver” for those in bandwidth-starved deserts. Meanwhile, the rest of the world continues to mine in the dark, hoping for a light they’ll never see.

    Braiins Pool and DMND are already running Stratum V2 in production. DMND, the youngest of the bunch, launched in 2025 as a pioneer of miner-selected templates. Blitzpool, meanwhile, caters to solo miners, who are as rare as a unicorn in a Bitcoin mine.

    The Working Group, founded in 2022 by Braiins and Spiral, has operated as an independent open-source community for four years. Now, with the addition of giants like Foundry and Luxor, it’s entering a “new phase of accelerated development”-a phrase that sounds more like a warning than a celebration.

    Foundry, Luxor, and Antpool had each made prior testing commitments, like students cramming for an exam. The seven new additions represent tens of exahashes per second, a figure that matters because five pools control 70% of global hashpower. But what’s 70% in a world where the majority is always the minority?

    For individual bitcoin miners, the practical shift depends on when these pools enable V2 access. Translation proxies allow Stratum V1 firmware to connect to V2 pools without upgrades, which is good news for those who can’t afford a new GPU. But in the end, it’s just another step in the eternal dance between control and freedom.

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    2026-05-09 23:29