L237.B - What is a Bitaxe? and how somebody mined 3,125 bitcoin with it!

·1 hr 18 min·5 clips

Every second, 600 quintillion hash operations are performed to try to find a new Bitcoin block.

The episode begins with an explanation of Bitcoin mining, describing hash functions and the difficulty of finding a valid block. It then introduces the Bitaxe, an open-source miner created by Scott, and mentions the recent event where a solo miner used one to mine a block. Scott shares his background as an electrical engineer and Bitcoin enthusiast who wanted to build a practical home miner. He details reverse-engineering Bitmain chips, starting with older models like the S1 and S9, to develop the Bitaxe. The host and Scott compare the efficiency of early miners like the S1 to modern devices, highlighting a decade of technological progress. They discuss the closed-source nature of industrial miners and the importance of open-source development in Bitcoin. Scott explains his motivation: to enable home mining without the noise, heat, and high costs of industrial rigs. The conversation explores why someone would mine with a low-hash-rate device like the Bitaxe, emphasizing the permissionless nature of Bitcoin and the lottery-like chance of solving a block. They calculate the odds and costs, comparing it to traditional lotteries. Scott talks about mining pools, solo mining, and the potential for Bitaxes to collectively secure the network. He estimates around 5,000 Bitaxes are in use and shares that one has reached a hash difficulty of 1.2 trillion, close to block-solving levels. The host describes his personal experience with a full sovereign mining stack using a Bitaxe, node, and pool. Scott envisions a future with cheaper, more performant open-source miners and hopes to see a million Bitaxes deployed. The episode concludes with reflections on decentralization and sponsorships.

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