DCG’s Bitcoin Mining Subsidiary To Stop Offering Free Services

Digital Currency Group’s (DCG) Foundry will soon stop offering free services to its customers. The Bitcoin mining firm will begin charging a pool fee from its members starting April 19, 2023. Foundry has provided its mining pool services for free since its inception in 2019. 

Foundry, the Bitcoin mining firm owned by the Digital Currency Group (DCG) is set to suspend free services for its clients later this month. The decision to start charging fees is likely motivated by the losses and liquidity issues that Barry Silbert’s crypto conglomerate has been dealing with over the past few months. 

DCG’s Foundry looks to increase revenue with pool fees

According to a report by Bloomberg, DGC owned Foundry will start charging tier-based fees from its clients for providing Bitcoin mining services. The New York-based firm, which happens to be the world’s largest active BTC mining pool, has sent a notice to its clients informing them about the new fee-based model.  The fees will come into effect between April 19 and April 22.

As the Foundry USA Pool continues to scale, we are implementing tiered fees that will further allow us to expand our feature set and continue operating within our FPPS [Full Pay Per Share] payout model,”

Foundry’s notice to clients

As far as the fees are concerned, the notice from Foundry stated that the pricing tiers for each quarter will be determined by the average hashrate of the previous quarter. The Bitcoin mining firm’s fee-based model comes four years after its inception. The company’s zero-fee model has been a major factor in its popularity, which has allowed it to capture a network share of more than 34%, making it the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool by computing power. 

The fee-based model came as good news for DCG, which has seen its fair share of monetary and legal problems over the past few months. The revenue generated from Foundry will help offset some of the $1.1 billion loss that the Digital Currency Group reported in 2022. The crypto conglomerate’s lending arm, Genesis, is currently undergoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.