Hong Kong, China, October 19th, 2026,
EMCD, global crypto mining pool, today launched a mining pool for Zcash (ZEC), The pool is live now for eligible miners worldwide.
The launch follows one of the strongest runs any proof-of-work coin has had in 2026. ZEC broke above $1,000 for the first time in early September, up roughly twenty-fold over the previous year, and network hashrate has grown more than 2.5x in the same period as miners redeployed hardware toward it. According to Grayscale Research, ZEC mining now generates roughly twice the daily revenue per device and four times the revenue per megawatt-hour of Bitcoin mining under current conditions.
EMCD said the decision to add ZEC was pulled by demand from its own user base as much as by the market: a share of its Bitcoin miners already own the ASIC hardware ZEC mining requires, and requests to support it had been building up through the platform’s support channels for months.
The new pool runs on a PPLNS payout model, which pays miners in proportion to shares actually submitted within a recent window rather than a flat rate — a structure EMCD said better reflects real contribution and resists pool-hopping. It carries a 1.5% pool fee and a 0.001 ZEC minimum payout. The pool is non-custodial: mined ZEC is sent directly to the miner’s own external wallet, with no built-in exchange, conversion or storage layered on top.
Payouts go only to transparent addresses; shielded and unified addresses are not supported, a design choice EMCD said keeps payout activity traceable and compatible with its KYC and geo-compliance checks.
As with the rest of the Zcash network, part of each block reward is directed to the protocol’s development fund rather than paid out to miners — a mechanism built into Zcash itself, not specific to EMCD.
Miners can connect to the new pool through EMCD’s existing dashboard, with support for worker monitoring and payout tracking.
“Zcash is the best-performing proof-of-work coin on the market right now, and that’s exactly the kind of opportunity our users have been asking us for,” – said Michael Jerlis CEO EMCD. – “A lot of our miners already own the hardware ZEC mining requires, and until now the only option was to run it on someone else’s pool. Now they can add it right alongside their BTC, LTC, DASH, ETC or KAS without opening a second account or learning new infrastructure. We built the ZEC pool the same way we build everything else: transparent on fees, and compliant with the markets we operate in, because that’s what lets miners trust the numbers we publish.”
About EMCD
EMCD is the global crypto mining pool and infrastructure provider. Founded in 2017 as an early industrial BTC mining operation in Europe, EMCD now serves users globally. With over 4% of global hashrate and a place in the global top ten, EMCD committed to security, reliability and transparency. EMCD’s mission is to make it simpler to build and earn digital assets. EMCD was recognised as Best Mining Pool by Coingape in 2026 and Finance Feeds in 2025.
