diff --git a/plugins/currency/zcash/zcash_flypool_hashrate_ b/plugins/currency/zcash/zcash_flypool_hashrate_
index 079f7198..8db6effc 100755
--- a/plugins/currency/zcash/zcash_flypool_hashrate_
+++ b/plugins/currency/zcash/zcash_flypool_hashrate_
@@ -82,13 +82,10 @@ except IOError as exc:
     print("Failed to request Flypool API: {}".format(exc), file=sys.stderr)
     sys.exit(9)
 
-# manage codec and error handling lookup process
-reader = codecs.getreader("utf-8")
-
 hash_rate = "U"
 
 try:
-    mining_stats = json.load(reader(mining_stats_raw))
+    mining_stats = json.loads(mining_stats_raw.read().decode("utf-8"))
 except ValueError:
     print("Failed to parse JSON responce.", file=sys.stderr)
 else: