Bitcoin Mining Giant Foundry Asks Miners To Vote on BIP-110 Soft Fork

The Power Shift in Hashrate

Mining pools have occupied a weird, uncomfortable middle ground in the Bitcoin ecosystem for years. On one hand, they provide the necessary aggregation for smaller operators to earn steady payouts. On the other, they hold a massive amount of concentrated power when it comes to protocol upgrades. When a pool decides to signal for a soft fork, they are usually doing it based on the internal decisions of a few executives, not the consensus of the thousands of individual machines connected to their servers.

Foundry Digital, currently the largest mining pool in North America, is trying to change that dynamic. They recently announced that they will allow their clients to vote on BIP-110, also known as the Proxy Protocol. This may sound like a minor administrative tweak, but for anyone building in the mining space or watching how Bitcoin evolves, it's a significant indicator of where the industry is heading.

What is BIP-110?

Before we get into the politics of voting, we need to understand the tech. BIP-110 is part of the larger Stratum V2 effort. If you aren't familiar with Stratum, it is the communication protocol that miners use to talk to pools. The current version, V1, is old, inefficient, and arguably a centralizing force. It essentially gives pools total control over which transactions get included in a block.

BIP-110, or the Proxy Protocol, acts as a bridge. It allows miners to adopt the benefits of Stratum V2—specifically the ability to choose their own transaction sets—while still working within the existing infrastructure of a V1 pool. It is a middle-of-the-road upgrade designed to give autonomy back to the individual miner without requiring a total overhaul of every server in the data center.

By asking miners to vote on this, Foundry is essentially asking their customers: Do you want more control, and are you willing to support the protocol change that enables it? It is a meta-conversation about the sovereignty of hashpower.

Why This Matters for Founders

If you are building a product in the crypto space, you’ve probably realized that decentralized governance is usually a mess. It’s often dominated by whales or slowed down by apathy. However, the mining sector is different because it is a capital-intensive business with real skin in the game. Every decision a miner makes has a direct impact on their bottom line.

Foundry’s move to implement a voting mechanism matters for a few reasons. First, it sets a precedent for transparency. In the past, if a pool operator was suspected of acting against the interests of its miners, the only recourse was to point your hashrate elsewhere. Now, there is a formal channel for communication. This reduces friction and builds a stickier relationship between the service provider and the customer.

Second, it validates the importance of Stratum V2. For years, SV2 has been the 'next big thing' that never quite seemed to arrive. By putting BIP-110 to a vote, Foundry is signaled that the demands for decentralization and efficiency are becoming too loud to ignore. Founders building hardware, management software, or financial products for miners should take this as a sign that the 'black box' era of mining pools is coming to an end.

The Skeptical Edge: Is This Real Decentralization?

I’m always a bit wary of corporate-led voting initiatives. There is always the risk that this is 'decentralization theater.' If Foundry holds the keys to the implementation, they still ultimately decide if and how the results are honored. Furthermore, the voting power is still tied to hashpower, which means the largest industrial farms will always drown out the smaller operators. That isn’t necessarily a bug—it’s how Bitcoin works—but we shouldn't pretend it's a democratic utopia.

There is also the question of education. How many miners actually understand the implications of BIP-110? Most operators are focused on uptime, power costs, and firmware efficiency. They aren't necessarily protocol developers. If a pool asks for a vote on a technical BIP, the burden of education falls on the pool or the community developers. If the information is biased, the vote will be too.

The Long Road to Stratum V2

The push for BIP-110 is really a push for a more resilient Bitcoin. One of the biggest criticisms of Bitcoin is that a handful of pool operators could, in theory, be coerced by governments to censor transactions. If Stratum V2 becomes the standard, that threat vector shrinks significantly because the pool no longer has the final say on what goes into the block—the miner does.

Foundry taking this step suggests they are preparing for a future where they are service providers rather than gatekeepers. This is a smart business move. As the industry matures, miners will gravitate toward platforms that offer the most autonomy. By leading the charge on voting, Foundry is positioning itself as the 'pro-miner' pool, even if they currently dominate the market share.

What Builders Should Watch

If you are in the trenches building on Bitcoin, pay attention to the turnout of this vote. If participation is high, it means miners are finally waking up to the importance of protocol-level participation. This could open the door for more complex votes in the future—perhaps on things like Drivechains or other scaling solutions.

We are moving away from the era where 'Core Devs' and 'Pool Owners' were the only two groups that mattered. The actual owners of the hardware are starting to realize their leverage. As a founder, you should be looking for ways to serve this new, more informed class of miner. Tools that simplify protocol voting, analytics that track pool behavior, and hardware that natively supports SV2 are all going to see increased demand.

The Takeaway

The Foundry vote on BIP-110 isn't just about a technical upgrade; it's a test of Bitcoin's governance at scale. It shows that even the largest players in the space are recognizing that hashrate isn't just a commodity—it’s a voice. Whether that voice is used effectively remains to be seen, but the shift toward transparent, miner-led decision-making is a net positive for the network's health.

Keep your eyes on the results. If BIP-110 gets a resounding 'yes' and a smooth rollout, expect every other major pool to follow suit or risk losing their customers to the promise of more control.

Read the original at Bitcoin Magazine →