Mike Colyer has stepped down as CEO of Foundry, ending a seven-year tenure leading the Digital Currency Group subsidiary that operates the world's largest Bitcoin mining pool, the company confirmed this week.

No successor has been named publicly. Colyer will remain with the firm as a strategic advisor, a role that retains his institutional knowledge but signals a shift in operational control. The transition arrives inside a far larger reset at the company.

What Colyer built at Foundry

Colyer joined Foundry in October 2019 as its first chief executive. He led the expansion from a startup into a central piece of Bitcoin's mining infrastructure, broadening the firm beyond pool operations into hardware marketplaces and staking services.

The staking arm is notable. Bitcoin itself does not use staking, and Foundry's move into that segment reflects the broader crypto market's pivot toward proof-of-stake economics. It also illustrates how the subsidiary has diversified beyond its original mandate.

Colyer brought sector experience to the role. He previously worked in business development at Core Scientific, one of the larger publicly traded Bitcoin miners, and led operations at the smaller firm Savage IO. The combination gave him visibility across both sales pipelines and site-level execution.

Why the timing matters

Foundry has cut roughly 60% of its workforce in recent months as part of a strategic refocus on its core mining operations. The subsidiary's headcount sat between 170 and 274 employees by mid-2024, according to public materials; a reduction of that magnitude reshapes the operating footprint of any infrastructure provider.

No public reason has been given for the CEO transition. Foundry has not tied the move to any specific event, enforcement action, or strategy change. Parent company Digital Currency Group has not publicly commented on the leadership handoff based on materials available at the time of writing.

Foundry has framed the layoffs as a refocus on mining pool operations and adjacent services, a signal that the subsidiary intends to concentrate capital and engineering resources where it holds the strongest market position.

What miners and partners should track next

Foundry's pool has historically accounted for a substantial share of Bitcoin's global hashrate, making the company one of the more closely watched infrastructure providers in the industry. Any sustained drop in pool share during the transition would draw immediate attention from miners and counterparties.

The successor timeline is the immediate operational question. Foundry has offered no date for naming a replacement, nor any indication of whether the firm will run an external search or promote internally. Colyer's retention as a strategic advisor provides transitional continuity.

The concrete signals to watch are a successor announcement, third-party pool hashrate dashboards for any hashrate migration, and any commentary from Digital Currency Group clarifying how it positions Foundry within its broader portfolio. Pool market share data, rather than the corporate press release, will most likely settle the question of how cleanly the handoff is proceeding.