Publicly traded bitcoin mining firm Hut 8 is now mining through Foundry’s North America-based pool, according to an announcement made Tuesday.

The Toronto-based company added 14,400 machines to Foundry’s pool with plans to deploy an additional 5,000 machines by August, per a statement shared with CoinDesk. 

Foundry, a wholly owned subsidiary of CoinDesk parent Digital Currency Group (DCG), just brought its pool out of a beta testing phase two weeks ago. Already Foundry ranks near the top 10 mining pools worldwide, marking a significant advancement in North American pooled mining activity for a sector historically dominated by the Eastern Hemisphere. 

“Having a formidable bitcoin mining pool based and operated entirely in North America is important to us,” said Hut 8 CEO Jamie Leverton in a statement. 

Hut 8 shares have significantly outperformed bitcoin so far in 2021, climbing nearly 160% to above C$8 per share. Bitcoin gained roughly 85% over the same period.