Tartanleaf

Tag: Bitcoin mining

  • Bitaxe Community Update: Copyleft, ESP-Miner 2.15.1, HashWatcher and Mining Economics

    Bitaxe Community Update: Copyleft, ESP-Miner 2.15.1, HashWatcher and Mining Economics

    The last few weeks have moved the Bitaxe story forward without producing a single headline that explains everything. The more important developments are spread across licensing, firmware maintenance, monitoring and the economics of running small miners.

    That combination is a sign of a maturing ecosystem. Bitaxe is no longer just one clever board. It is a family of open hardware, several firmware branches, commercial products, community tools and a growing set of questions about what buyers should expect when a product is described as open source.

    Open source is more than publishing a few files

    Bitaxe Townhall #63 focused on open-source principles and copyleft licensing. The timing is useful. Bitaxe and related projects now involve designers, firmware developers, manufacturers, vendors and owners in many countries. As that network grows, the words open source need to mean something specific.

    Publishing a schematic or a firmware archive is not the same as maintaining a reproducible open project. The useful questions are:

    • Is the preferred source available, rather than only a finished binary or fabrication file?
    • Does the repository identify a licence?
    • Are changes to redistributed versions made available under the terms of that licence?
    • Can someone other than the original seller understand, repair and support the exact board revision?
    • Are the product name, hardware design and firmware being described separately and accurately?

    Copyleft licences are intended to preserve downstream freedom. A company can manufacture and sell an open design, but it cannot quietly take the community’s work, distribute a modified version and ignore the licence obligations that made that work available in the first place.

    For an owner, this is practical rather than philosophical. Good source files and documentation make it more likely that a board can be repaired, that firmware support can continue and that a product will not become dependent on one seller.

    The Gamma Hex 1300 repository, for example, identifies the hardware as a six-chip BM1370 design and publishes it under the strongly reciprocal CERN Open Hardware Licence. That does not by itself prove production maturity, but it makes the design and the terms under which it can be reused much clearer.

    ESP-Miner 2.15.1 is a maintenance release worth noticing

    The August 30 update covered the larger changes in ESP-Miner 2.15.0, including unified firmware and mDNS support. Since then, ESP-Miner 2.15.1 has become the current stable release.

    Version 2.15.1 is a focused maintenance update. Its published fixes include:

    • correcting Swarm IP discovery;
    • improving WPA2/WPA3 compatibility;
    • preventing reconnect storms caused by slow clients; and
    • clarifying the asset message on the update page.

    Those are not glamorous features, but network discovery and reconnection behaviour matter on a miner expected to run unattended.

    The same firmware advice still applies: do not update simply because a larger version number exists. Record your pool, network, voltage and frequency settings. Confirm support for the exact board revision. Download firmware from the official release page, and update one miner first if you operate several.

    There is also an ESP-Miner 2.15.2 release candidate. It adds BM1372/BM1373 driver support and colour-display support for the Naja Duo and Gamma Hex, along with several fixes. It is explicitly labelled a pre-release intended for testing rather than stability. That distinction should be taken seriously. Owners who depend on a stable miner should normally remain on the stable release unless they have a specific reason to test a release candidate and a recovery path if it fails.

    Gamma Hex moves from a repository toward firmware support

    I introduced the Gamma Hex 1300 in the previous update, so it should not be treated as a brand-new announcement. The useful change is that firmware support is beginning to catch up with the hardware repository.

    The design remains a six-chip BM1370 board with a 12-volt input, ESP32-S3 controller, colour display, adjustable voltage regulation and dual ASIC-temperature monitoring. The repository is still small and does not publish a hardware release. The addition of display support in the 2.15.2 release candidate is evidence of active integration, not evidence that the model is ready for every buyer.

    This is a good example of the stages an open miner passes through:

    1. A design appears in a public repository.
    2. Contributors review and revise the hardware.
    3. Firmware learns to identify and operate the board.
    4. Builders produce working units.
    5. Owners accumulate useful experience with power, cooling and reliability.

    Those stages can overlap, but they are not interchangeable. A repository and a firmware pull request are encouraging; production availability and field experience are different milestones.

    HashWatcher offers a broader view of several miners

    HashWatcher is a third-party Android application that supports Bitaxe and NerdQaxe++ miners alongside several larger-miner platforms. Its listing describes fleet monitoring, temperature alerts, charts, reports and custom overclock controls for supported small miners.

    This addresses a real limitation of browser-based dashboards. AxeOS is convenient when working with one miner. It becomes less convenient when every unit has a separate address and you want to see at a glance which miner is hot, offline or underperforming.

    The developer says miner data is fetched directly from the devices and that no third-party cloud is required. The Google Play data-safety declaration currently says that the app does not collect or share data. Those are useful statements, but they do not remove the need for normal care.

    Before allowing any monitoring application to change miner settings:

    • confirm that you have the correct app and developer;
    • review its permissions and privacy information;
    • begin with monitoring before using tuning controls;
    • keep a record of known-good voltage and frequency settings; and
    • remember that a convenient control can still request an unsafe setting.

    Remote visibility is useful. It should not replace local records, temperature limits or a recovery plan.

    Mining economics continue to favour efficiency

    Hashrate Index’s September 14 roundup placed spot hashprice at about US$39.25 per PH/s per day. It reported a seven-day network-hashrate average near 943 EH/s and estimated a 5.26% difficulty increase for September 19. Its six-month forward market was pricing average hashprice around US$36.92 per PH/s per day.

    These figures are dated observations, not forecasts that should be treated as certain. Difficulty, Bitcoin price, transaction fees and network hashrate all move.

    They also need to be interpreted carefully for a Bitaxe. Hashprice is useful for comparing expected mining revenue at scale. A small solo miner has a very different experience: most days produce no payout at all, while a successful block is a rare event. The expected value can be estimated, but the actual result is highly variable.

    The broader lesson is still valid. Hashrate affects the probability of finding work, while joules per terahash determine how much electricity is required to sustain that probability. Hashrate Index’s fleet figures showed substantially more revenue per unit of energy for equipment below 14 J/TH than for less efficient groups. Those are fleet-level comparisons, not promises for a desktop miner, but they explain why efficiency matters as network conditions become less forgiving.

    For many Bitaxe owners, the objective is learning, supporting open mining, experimenting with heat reuse or taking a very small chance at a solo block—not earning dependable income. A good purchase decision begins by stating that objective honestly.

    What I would do now

    For an existing owner, the mid-September priorities are straightforward:

    1. Treat ESP-Miner 2.15.1 as the current stable maintenance release and read its notes before updating.
    2. Treat 2.15.2 as test firmware until a stable release replaces it.
    3. Verify the hardware repository, licence and exact board revision when evaluating an “open-source” product.
    4. Use fleet-monitoring tools as a convenience layer, not as a substitute for safe settings and local records.
    5. Compare miners by efficiency, power, cooling, firmware support and maturity—not hashrate alone.

    The Bitaxe ecosystem is becoming more capable, but also more specialized. That makes careful documentation more important, not less. The best projects will be the ones that combine transparent licensing, reproducible hardware, maintainable firmware and honest descriptions of what is ready today.

    I will continue updating the Bitcoin Mining with Bitaxe Updates page as stable firmware and production experience catch up with the announcements.

    For a practical guide to setup, tuning, monitoring and recovery, see Bitcoin Mining with Bitaxe. The free Bitaxe Owner’s Maintenance and Troubleshooting Pack provides printable baseline and troubleshooting worksheets.

    — Greg Weir, Tartanleaf

    Sources and verification notes

  • Bitaxe Community Update: Naja Duo, ESP-Miner 2.15.0 and the BM1373 Generation

    Bitaxe Community Update: Naja Duo, ESP-Miner 2.15.0 and the BM1373 Generation

    The last two weeks have moved the open-source home-mining story forward on two fronts at once. New BM1373-based hardware is moving from prototypes and announcements toward products people can order, while ESP-Miner 2.15.0 changes the way Bitaxe firmware updates work.

    There is also a useful caution running through all of this. A product announcement, an open hardware repository, firmware support and something you can buy today are four different things. They sometimes arrive together. Often they do not.

    That distinction matters more as the Bitaxe family expands.

    The Naja Duo brings BM1373 to a Bitaxe product

    The headline hardware announcement is the Bitaxe Naja Duo 1201, launched by Solo Satoshi at the end of August. It uses two BM1373 ASICs, the newer generation of silicon associated with Bitmain’s S23 machines.

    Solo Satoshi lists the Naja Duo at about 4.4 TH/s and 42 watts at its default settings, or roughly 9.5 joules per terahash. If those numbers hold across production units, that is a substantial efficiency improvement over BM1370-based desktop miners.

    The vendor also reports an 8 TH/s overclock at about 92 watts and much higher results under experimental liquid cooling. Those figures are interesting, but I would treat them as demonstrations of headroom rather than recommended operating points. Higher clock speed, voltage and temperature all change the reliability equation. A quiet, efficient miner that runs consistently is usually more useful than a benchmark that cannot be sustained.

    Other practical changes include individual chip-temperature monitoring, a larger colour display, an XT30 power connection and cooling designed for a two-chip board. The product is described as running the mainline ESP-Miner and AxeOS stack.

    There is one naming wrinkle worth knowing. The older bitaxeorg/bitaxeNaja repository currently describes an untested two-chip BM1340 prototype, not the newly announced BM1373 Naja Duo. I have not found a corresponding BM1373 hardware repository in the Bitaxe organization as of August 30. That does not make the product claim false, but it does mean buyers should not assume that every reference to “Naja” describes the same board.

    My practical advice is simple: verify the exact model number, firmware, warranty, power supply and published design files before ordering. For a newly launched model, I would also allow time for production owners to report thermals, stability and real wall-power measurements.

    NerdAxe Gaia offers a single-chip route

    The NerdAxe Gaia approaches BM1373 from the other direction. It is a single-chip desktop miner advertised at roughly 2.4 to 2.6 TH/s and about 25 watts, depending on the vendor listing. European listings currently describe it as a pre-order product with September shipping.

    That makes it an interesting low-power entry into the new silicon generation, but there is an important firmware distinction: Gaia is part of the NerdAxe family. Its BM1373 support is in the ESP-Miner-NerdQAxePlus project, not the main Bitaxe ESP-Miner release.

    The interfaces share a family resemblance, but firmware is hardware-specific. Do not choose a firmware file because the dashboard looks familiar. Use the release and flashing instructions for the exact board and revision you own. Early Gaia buyers should also expect its BM1373 support to be in the 1.1.0 pre-release line rather than the older stable branch.

    ESP-Miner 2.15.0 simplifies Bitaxe updates

    For existing Bitaxe owners, the most broadly useful development is ESP-Miner 2.15.0, released August 21.

    The largest change is unified firmware. AxeOS is now embedded in esp-miner.bin, so the normal update no longer requires a separate www.bin upload. After installing 2.15.0, refresh the browser page so it loads the updated interface.

    The release also adds mDNS support. On a network that supports it, you can reach a miner by its hostname—for example, bitaxe.local—instead of first looking up its IP address. This is convenient, although keeping a record of the IP address or DHCP reservation is still worthwhile when troubleshooting.

    Other changes include better undervoltage information, total uptime and hash counts, multi-line charts, a restart confirmation, fixes for several memory and WebSocket problems, and further Stratum V2 work. The Stratum changes include larger frames, better handling of fractional pool difficulty and an optional per-pool authentication requirement.

    This is a meaningful release, but “meaningful” does not mean “install immediately on every stable miner.” Before updating:

    1. Record your pool, network, frequency and voltage settings.
    2. Confirm that 2.15.0 supports your exact board revision.
    3. Download firmware only from the official ESP-Miner release page.
    4. Update one miner first if you operate several.
    5. Leave it at known-good settings while you confirm temperatures, accepted shares and stability.

    If your miner is stable and you do not need the new features, waiting for more field experience is also a reasonable decision. I explain that decision process in Should You Update Bitaxe Firmware?.

    OSMU adds the Gamma Hex to the hardware conversation

    The item I found on OSMU that was not in my initial notes is the Bitaxe Gamma Hex 1300. Its new Bitaxe organization repository describes a six-chip BM1370 design using an ESP32-S3, a colour display and ESP-Miner.

    This belongs in the “watch the project” category for now. The repository is new, has only a small number of commits and does not yet publish a release. That is enough to establish that the design exists; it is not enough to treat it like a mature, widely available model.

    The distinction is important. Open repositories let the community inspect and improve a design early. They are evidence of development, not automatically evidence of production readiness.

    A more useful way to compare the growing model list

    The market is becoming harder to describe with a single list of names. A better comparison asks four questions:

    • Which ASIC and how many chips does the board use?
    • Is the hardware design published, and where?
    • Which firmware project supports the exact board revision?
    • Is it a mature product, a new production model, a pre-order or an experimental design?

    By that measure, the late-August picture is clearer:

    • Naja Duo 1201: newly launched two-chip BM1373 product; attractive vendor specifications, with independent production experience still to come.
    • NerdAxe Gaia: single-chip BM1373 product in pre-order or early-shipping status; uses the NerdQAxePlus firmware family.
    • Gamma Hex 1300: newly published six-chip BM1370 open design; still early in its repository life.
    • Existing Gamma, Supra, Ultra, Max and UltraHex designs: established reference points, although actual retail availability varies by model and vendor.

    The important change is not simply that miners are getting faster. New-generation ASICs are reaching desk-sized, open-source hardware, while firmware and product families are becoming more specialized. That creates more choice, but it also puts more responsibility on the buyer to match the model, firmware and documentation correctly.

    I will continue updating the Bitcoin Mining with Bitaxe Updates page as production experience catches up with the announcements.

    For a practical guide to setup, tuning, monitoring and recovery, see Bitcoin Mining with Bitaxe. The free Bitaxe Owner’s Maintenance and Troubleshooting Pack provides printable baseline and troubleshooting worksheets.

    — Greg Weir, Tartanleaf

    Sources and verification notes

  • Bitaxe Community Update: A Gamma Finds Block 957,382

    Bitaxe Community Update: A Gamma Finds Block 957,382

    A palm-sized Gamma found a full Bitcoin block, ESP-Miner moved into the 2.14 series, and multi-chip open-hardware miners continued to stretch what a desktop rig can do. Here is what matters—and what still belongs in the “wait and see” column.

    A Bitaxe Gamma finds block 957,382

    On July 9, a miner using a single Bitaxe Gamma through Public Pool found Bitcoin block 957,382. The block paid 3.1382 BTC, including the 3.125 BTC subsidy and transaction fees. The block itself can be checked independently on mempool.space, while coverage of the miner and hardware identified the device as a Gamma running at roughly 995 GH/s to 1 TH/s. The reward was worth about US$200,000 at the time.

    The detail that caught most headlines was the contrast: a miner costing roughly US$150 found a full block after about eight hours online. It is a wonderful result, but it needs the right interpretation. Eight hours was the winner’s actual runtime, not the expected time to find a block. At that hashrate, a solo block remains an extraordinarily rare event.

    I still think “lottery miner” is a useful shorthand, provided we do not let the metaphor turn into a promise. A Bitaxe does real work and submits real shares to the Bitcoin network. It also gives its owner a very small chance of finding a block. The July win is proof that the chance is not zero; it is not evidence of predictable income.

    What makes the story worthwhile is not simply the payout. A small open-source miner became part of Bitcoin’s permanent history. That is a remarkable outcome for hardware that can sit on a desk.

    ESP-Miner is now in the 2.14 series

    The firmware picture also changed this summer. The current production release listed by the project is ESP-Miner 2.14.2, issued in July. It follows the much larger 2.14.0 release, which added a customizable AxeOS dashboard, better mobile presentation, downloadable logs, pause and resume controls, a WebSocket API, and Stratum V2 support. The 2.14.2 maintenance release fixes a race condition and improves frequency fallback during self-test.

    This is not an emergency update story. It is a reminder to check the release notes, confirm that the image matches your board, and use the project’s documented update path. If a miner is stable, there is no prize for being the first person to install every release. Back up or record your settings, avoid interrupting power during an update, and leave experimental builds to situations where you are prepared to troubleshoot them.

    BM1373: interesting, but not yet a Bitaxe product

    There is growing community interest in Bitmain’s newer BM1373 ASIC, with discussion centred on higher per-chip hashrate and the possibility of a future generation of compact miners. For now, I would resist attaching firm specifications or shipping dates to a future Bitaxe. The official Bitaxe organization’s published hardware list still identifies the Gamma and Gamma Turbo as BM1370 designs; it does not list a generally available BM1373 Bitaxe.

    That does not mean nothing is happening. Chips are appearing in the broader home-mining conversation, and open-hardware developers are clearly exploring what comes next. But chip availability, board design, power delivery, cooling, firmware support, and manufacturability all have to come together before an interesting ASIC becomes a dependable product.

    The practical consequence may arrive before the new hardware does: anticipation of a next generation can soften prices on current Gamma boards. A discounted BM1370 miner does not suddenly become obsolete. For learning, experimenting, running a node-adjacent appliance, or taking a very long solo chance, the current hardware still does exactly what it did before.

    NerdQAxe++ shows what more chips—and more power—can do

    The NerdQAxe++ is not a Bitaxe, but it belongs in the same open-hardware home-mining conversation. A four-chip BM1370 model gives builders another way to balance hashrate, heat, noise, and power on a desktop.

    Vendor figures vary by revision and cooling configuration. TinyChipHub describes its NerdQAxe++ Remastered at about 5.2 TH/s and 80 W in its normal configuration, with its own internal testing reaching about 6 TH/s at 100–110 W. Solo Satoshi reports that Revision 7 runs at roughly 4.8 TH/s and 69.5 W at stock settings, with substantially more overclocking headroom after a redesign of the power-delivery system.

    Those are vendor measurements rather than universal guarantees. They are also a useful illustration of the engineering trade-off. More frequency and more chips can produce more hashrate, but they also require better power delivery and cooling. The impressive number is not always the setting you would choose for quiet, efficient, continuous operation.

    Multi-device setups add another possibility. Several small miners can point at the same pool or be managed as a small home fleet. That makes the Bitaxe useful not only as a standalone solo miner, but also as a modular building block. It does not improve the economics by magic; it simply lets the owner add hashrate in manageable steps.

    The larger lesson

    The Gamma block win will understandably receive most of the attention. My larger takeaway is that open-source home mining continues to mature around it. Firmware is becoming more capable, multi-chip designs are becoming more refined, and the next ASIC generation is close enough to provoke serious discussion.

    None of that changes the basic advice: buy a small miner because you want to learn, experiment, support open hardware, or participate directly in proof-of-work—not because a headline makes the payout look repeatable.

    Sometimes, however, the long shot lands. In July 2026, one Bitaxe Gamma proved it.