Whalesbook
Miners Take the Reins
The adoption of the Stratum V2 protocol by leading Bitcoin mining entities represents a significant, though quietly executed, move toward decentralization within the network. This open-source protocol manages communication between mining pools and individual miners, fundamentally changing how transactions are chosen for new blocks.
Boosting Decentralization
Under the older Stratum V1 standard, pool operators decided which transactions were included in new blocks. Stratum V2 allows individual miners to build their own block templates. This change tackles a major structural worry in Bitcoin mining: power over which transactions get included has been concentrated in a few large pools. While hashrate concentration is still a factor, decision-making power over block content now rests with the miners themselves. Seven major pools—Foundry (34.2% hashrate), AntPool (14.2%), F2Pool (11.3%), SpiderPool (10.5%), MARA Pool (4.7%), Block Inc., and DMND—collectively supporting Stratum V2 now account for close to 75% of global Bitcoin hashrate.
Miner Economics and Network Health
The Stratum V2 protocol, co-founded by Braiins and Spiral in 2022, was once a niche project. Foundry and AntPool's recent endorsement suggests Stratum V2 will be deployed much faster now. This happens as miners face tough market conditions; CoinShares estimates up to 20% are currently unprofitable. The hashprice, a key metric for miner revenue, sits at $38.57 per petahash per second per day, nearing breakeven for many hardware operators. The network's mining difficulty is also set to increase on May 15 from 132.47T to 135.64T, according to CoinWarz data, while the total network hashrate is 998 exahash per second.