Correction — August 12, 2026: The original version of this article incorrectly described ESP‑Miner v2.8.1 as a June 2026 release. It also contained duplicated draft text and unsupported hardware and mining-difficulty speculation. The article has been replaced with the verified release timeline below, based on the official ESP‑Miner repository.
Around mid-June 2026, the clearest Bitaxe development was continuing work on ESP‑Miner and AxeOS. The official release history shows that v2.14.0b4—not v2.8.1—was the most recent published pre-release before the original June 13 article date.
May 29: ESP‑Miner v2.14.0b4
ESP‑Miner v2.14.0b4 was published as a pre-release on May 29. Its release notes include WebSocket API work, pool-disconnect handling, improved dashboard performance, measurement of Stratum V2 share-response time, and a TCP change intended to reduce Stratum V2 submission latency.
June 19: ESP‑Miner v2.14.1
ESP‑Miner v2.14.1 followed on June 19, after the original article date. The official notes list Bitaxe 603 support, a configurable self-test warm-up temperature, a swarm-device editing fix, and a fix for a buffer overflow in rejected-share statistics.
July 8: ESP‑Miner v2.14.2
ESP‑Miner v2.14.2 was published on July 8. Its release notes describe a use-after-free race-condition fix and a self-test frequency fallback correction.
What Bitaxe owners should take from this
Firmware development was active, but version numbers and hardware support were changing quickly. Before updating, read the official release notes, confirm that the firmware image matches your board, record your working configuration, and have a rollback plan. Newer is not automatically better for every device or setup.
For a step-by-step decision process, see Should You Update Bitaxe Firmware? A Low-Risk Decision Process. For the current upstream state, use the official ESP‑Miner releases page.
This correction intentionally removes the earlier unsourced claims about solo-mining coverage, BM1373 availability, and a projected network-difficulty change. Those subjects require their own dated, primary-source-supported reporting.