diff --git a/plugins/currency/zcash/zcash_flypool_hashrate_ b/plugins/currency/zcash/zcash_flypool_hashrate_
index a9cba304..609c1aa9 100755
--- a/plugins/currency/zcash/zcash_flypool_hashrate_
+++ b/plugins/currency/zcash/zcash_flypool_hashrate_
@@ -82,8 +82,10 @@ except IOError as exc:
     print("Failed to request Flypool API: {}".format(exc), file=sys.stderr)
     sys.exit(9)
 
+reader = codecs.getreader("utf-8")
+
 try:
-    mining_stats = json.load(mining_stats_raw)
+    mining_stats = json.load(reader(mining_stats_raw))
 except ValueError:
     print("Failed to parse JSON responce.", file=sys.stderr)
     sys.exit(9)