This week at the Nashville Energy Mining Summit the @256FOUNDATION (@skot9000 @ryankuester @jungly @econoalchemist @Schnitzel) presented something that hasn’t existed in #Bitcoin for a long time: 👉 a fully open-source Bitcoin mining stack Hardware. Firmware. Software. Mining Pool. Every layer open. Yes, it also cooked steaks. More on that later 🥩⚡

Spent years hating work on planes without knowing why. @united + @Starlink solved the mystery: it was the 10-second wait for every page load. That tiny lag was enough to ruin the whole thing. Fast Wi-Fi at 35,000 ft and suddenly I love it.

Bitcoin mining must be open-source or Bitcoin remains PERMISSIONED. Check out my deep dive on our work at the @256FOUNDATION to understand why we're commoditizing the building blocks of the mining stack and how we're best positioned to pull it off.

Early beta GridPool packages for Umbrel and StartOS are finally finished. This incorporates some critical security fixes that were identified by @256FOUNDATION 's Red Team, spearheaded by @Schnitzel . Many thanks to them for the support and for make GridPool a secure and well tested option sovereign miners. Setup is close to "one-click". Install the package, enter your payout address. It will connect to the GridPool network automatically. Note this is SV2 ONLY, due to undetermined behavior with SV1 firmwares using large coinbase transactions. DATUM support is not included in this release for the same reason. Beta testers are very welcome! Please help me prove this out and make it better. StartOS package: github.com/gridlabs-science/… Umbrel package: github.com/gridlabs-science/… Main package, for other server setups: github.com/gridlabs-science/…

Great things are happening!

RED TEAM COMES TO BITCOIN MINING: 256 FOUNDATION AUDITS MINING FIRMWARE, FINDS THIRD-PARTY RISKS @256FOUNDATION has launched the 256 Red Team, a security program auditing ASIC mining firmware through reverse engineering, live traffic capture and share-level reconciliation. The team says it has filed 41 findings across stock Bitmain firmware and third-party alternatives including LuxOS, VNISH and Braiins OS. Among the issues found: unauthenticated factory APIs, paths to root access, default credentials, embedded vendor SSH keys and updates that fail to verify what they install. But the biggest surprise came from Bitmain. After decompiling its miner daemons and examining live connections, researchers say they found no evidence of hashrate skimming, remote kill switches or covert beacons in stock Bitmain firmware. Instead, the team says concerning hidden behavior was concentrated in third-party “optimized” firmware. Three responsible disclosures have already been submitted to VNISH, Luxor and Braiins, with researchers giving each 30 days to respond before publication. MicroBT, Canaan, Auradine, Bitdeer and ePIC are next on the bench.

Someone just donated a "Canaan Avalon Mini 3" for the 256-Red-Team 👀 🎉 Let's see what we can find on it. And of course after we dissect it also run Mujina on it, based on the epic work of @unknown_aadhi

TODAY: Stacker News AMA with @Schnitzel - 1500 UTC! Come ask about Bitcoin miner heat reuse, home mining, open source firmware and everything heatpunk! 🗓 Today, 23 July 2026 ⏰ 10AM CDT / 1500 UTC 📍 @stacker_news

any questions about Heat Reuse, LibreBoard, 256 Foundation, Mujina forks, or in any way the future of Bitcoin Mining? - Join my AMA tomorrow! Happy to answer any questions :)