Bitaxe and NerdMiner: which to buy, flashing AxeOS from the browser, solo pool and overclocking

A Bitaxe is a palm-sized open-source ASIC built around one chip from the Antminer S21 Pro: it draws 15–20 W and mines bitcoin solo — either nothing or a whole block. A NerdMiner is even simpler: a $50 ESP32 board with a screen that honestly hashes and will never find anything, but shows how mining works. In 2026 devices like these have taken blocks worth $200–300k several times, and demand has grown. This guide covers which model to get, how to flash from a browser without installing anything, how to connect to a solo pool, how to overclock, and what the odds really are.

📌 Status as of 11 September 2026: the current AxeOS (ESP-Miner) firmware is v2.15.0 from 21 August 2026. BTC difficulty is 127.45 T, network hashrate about 934 EH/s. Latest solo blocks from home devices: 9 July 2026 (a single Bitaxe at ~995 GH/s, Public Pool) and 2 August 2026 (Solo CKPool, the pool's 317th solo block).

Models: what to buy

Every Bitaxe runs the same AxeOS firmware, connects over Wi-Fi, shows stats on a screen and is configured from a browser. The difference is the chip and how many of them.

Prices are as of publication from official sellers on the bitaxe.org list; AliExpress is cheaper, but that's also where the fakes are.

What to buy in 2026: the Bitaxe Gamma. The BM1370 is twice as efficient as the BM1366, overclocks from 525 to 800–1000 MHz and gives 1.8–2 TH/s with decent cooling. Ultra and Supra only make sense if they're much cheaper. The Hex is for maximum hashrate in one box, but six older chips burn four times the energy per terahash of a Gamma.

A NerdMiner isn't a miner but a teaching device: 300 kH/s against a Gamma's 1.2 TH/s is a four-million-fold difference. Buying it for a shot at a block is pointless; buying it for a screen with the BTC price and an understanding of stratum — yes.

⚠️ Important. Bitaxe is open hardware made by dozens of manufacturers. Check the seller in the Legit Manufacturers section on bitaxe.org. AliExpress fakes have overheating voltage regulators and reject-bin chips: they run at stock but die when overclocked.

What you need besides the device

• Power supply. Bitaxe runs on 5 V. A Gamma at stock needs 5 V / 5 A (25 W); for overclocking you want 30 W or more of headroom — a Mean Well LRS-50-5 with a barrel lead works well. Bundled AliExpress bricks often sag under load: the first sign is a red Undervoltage warning in AxeOS.
• 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. The ESP32 can't see 5 GHz networks. If your router merges bands under one name, the ESP32 usually connects fine, but if you have trouble, create a separate 2.4 GHz network.
• A wallet with a BTC address. The block reward goes directly to the address you put in the pool settings. It must be yours with access to the seed — not an exchange address. Any wallet works, e.g. the one from our Exodus review, or a hardware wallet.
• A USB-C data cable — only for flashing. Charge-only cables without data lines won't work.

Step 1. First boot and Wi-Fi

Plug in power. The Bitaxe creates an access point named like Bitaxe_XXXX. Connect to it from your phone; a setup page opens (if not, browse to http://192.168.4.1). Enter the name and password of your 2.4 GHz network and click Save. The device reboots and shows its IP on the screen.

Everything else is done from a browser at that IP. From AxeOS 2.15.0 mDNS also works: the device opens at http://bitaxe.local (the name is changed under Settings → Hostname — handy when you have several units).

A NerdMiner is set up the same way: access point NerdMinerAP, password MineYourCoins, page at 192.168.4.1, where you enter Wi-Fi, pool and address in one go.

Step 2. Pool: Public Pool or Solo CKPool

A Bitaxe mines solo: the pool only hands out work and assembles the block; you receive the whole reward at your address. Two main options:

From Europe the ping to eusolo.ckpool.org is lower, but 2 % is $4–6k off a block. Public Pool is free, servers in the US. The ping difference barely affects rejects on a solo device — shares go out every few seconds. How to read your reject rate is covered in the rejected shares article.

In AxeOS: Settings → Stratum:

Stratum URL:  public-pool.io
Stratum Port: 21496
Stratum User: bc1qYOUR_ADDRESS.bitaxe1
Stratum Pass: x

The worker name after the dot is anything you like; it tells devices apart in the stats. Fill the second Fallback Stratum field with Solo CKPool: if Public Pool goes down, the Bitaxe switches itself (in 2.15.0 the switch is off by default — enable Use Fallback Stratum).

🔒 The reward goes to the address in the settings — and only there. Compare the address character by character with your wallet before saving. One wrong character sends 3 BTC into the void. Don't use exchange addresses: some don't accept coinbase payouts, and there's no way to recover them.

Step 3. Updating firmware from AxeOS

If the device is already running, updating takes two clicks: Settings → Update Firmware → choose esp-miner.bin from the latest release on GitHub bitaxeorg/ESP-Miner → wait for Working and the reboot.

From v2.15.0 you don't upload www.bin — the web interface is embedded in the main firmware. If the page looks broken after updating, hard-refresh it in the browser (Ctrl+F5).

At the time of publication the current version is v2.15.0 (21 August 2026), but always take Latest without an rc or beta tag.

Step 4. Flashing via the Web Flasher (first install or recovery)

The Web Flasher is for when the device doesn't respond, came with someone else's or an old firmware, or you built the Bitaxe yourself. No software to install — it all runs in the browser via Web Serial.

1. Use Chrome, Edge or Brave on a computer. Firefox, Safari and mobile browsers don't support Web Serial.
2. Connect the Bitaxe to the computer with a USB-C data cable and keep the external power connected — the device won't run from USB.
3. Open the official Bitaxe Web Flasher — the link is on bitaxe.org; NerdMiner and NerdQaxe have their own flashers on their project pages.
4. Click Connect and pick the port in the browser dialog (usually USB JTAG/serial or CP210x).
5. Select the model and the exact board version — it's printed on the board: 601, 602, 603 for Gamma, 401 for Supra, 205 for Ultra. Wrong version — wrong voltages on the chip.
6. Pick the latest stable version and click Flash. Flashing takes 1–2 minutes, then the device reboots and brings up the Wi-Fi setup access point (step 1).

🛡️ If no port appears: on Windows install the CP210x or CH340 driver from the chip maker's site, reseat the cable, try another USB port without a hub. The antivirus isn't involved here — it's a driver, not a miner.

For a NerdMiner v2 on the LilyGO T-Display S3 the procedure is the same. You can choose between two firmwares: the original 1.8.3 (~220–250 kH/s) or BitMiner24 2.0 (~300 kH/s, web dashboard, counters that survive a reboot) — both open source under MIT.

Step 5. Overclocking the Gamma in AxeOS

Stock Gamma settings are 525–600 MHz at 1150 mV, about 1.2 TH/s. The real ceiling of the BM1370 with good cooling is 800–1000 MHz and 1.8–2 TH/s.

Unlock the hidden settings. Append ?oc to the settings page URL: http://IP/#/settings?oc. Frequency and Core Voltage fields appear.

Procedure:

1. A day at stock. Record hashrate, ASIC temperature, VR (regulator) temperature, error percentage, power draw.
2. Raise frequency in 25–50 MHz steps, 30–60 minutes of observation per step. If the error rate rises or hashrate drops as frequency goes up — back off one step.
3. When frequency stalls, add voltage in 25 mV steps. Above 1300 mV on stock cooling is pointless.
4. Keep the ASIC below 65 °C and watch VR temp: above 700 MHz the regulator heats faster than the chip — on a Gamma 602 bench at 800 MHz the VR read 94 °C with the chip at 62 °C.

Operating points that repeat across most units: 700 MHz / 1200 mV — moderate, ~1.5 TH/s; 850 MHz / 1300 mV — aggressive, ~1.8 TH/s with a finned pin heatsink and a 60 mm fan. The opposite trick is undervolting: lower voltage by 25 mV at stock frequency until errors exceed 2 % — free watts saved.

⚠️ Important. Overclocking voids the warranty with most sellers and speeds up chip degradation. The bundled 5 V / 4–5 A brick isn't good enough for 850 MHz — Undervoltage in AxeOS is warning you about exactly that. Replace the thermal pad under the heatsink with paste and stick small heatsinks on the regulator MOSFETs.

Real odds: let's do the math

Probability of finding a block = your hashrate ÷ network hashrate, times 144 blocks a day. With the network at about 934 EH/s at publication:

That's not a typo. But Poisson works so that a block is equally likely on day one or a thousand years later: block 924,569 in November 2025 was found by six Gammas at 5.4 TH/s, and block 957,382 in July 2026 by a single Bitaxe at 995 GH/s eight hours after being switched on. Network difficulty has fallen 12 % since January 2026, so the odds are slightly better now than a year ago.

Economics: a Gamma at stock is 17 W × 24 h = 0.4 kWh a day, roughly €1.50 a month in Germany. That's the price of a lottery ticket that hangs on the wall and warms the room by half a degree. Calling it income is wrong; picking between a Bitaxe and an Antminer on payback is wrong too: in a pool a Gamma earns about $1 a month, less than the electricity.

Common problems

Hashrate on the dashboard, zero on the pool. Check that you're looking at your address in the pool stats, not the worker; on Public Pool data appears 5–10 minutes after the first share. If it's still empty after an hour — a typo in the address, or port 3333 instead of 21496.

The device drops Wi-Fi every few hours. Weak signal or a router that evicts "sleeping" clients. Set a static IP by MAC in the router, disable band steering, move it closer. Reconnection is more robust in AxeOS 2.15.0.

Undervoltage / hashrate jumps around. The power supply can't keep up. Measure the voltage at the connector under load: below 4.8 V — replace the brick.

After a Web Flasher flash the device doesn't bring up the access point. Wrong board version selected. Reflash with the correct one; the version is printed on the board next to the chip.

ASIC temp 70+ °C at stock. The heatsink is pressed through a thick thermal pad, or the fan blows the wrong way. Check airflow direction and replace the pad with paste.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Can a Bitaxe mine in a regular pool instead of solo? Yes, any stratum pool will accept it. But at 1.2 TH/s payouts are about $1 a month — less than the electricity. The point of a Bitaxe is solo: nothing or everything.

Can I combine several Bitaxes? Yes. AxeOS has a Swarm tab that shows all devices on the network on one screen. On the pool use one address and different worker names after the dot: the pool sums the hashrate, and the reward still goes to the address.

Do I need to run my own node? No. Public Pool and CKPool run their own nodes. Your own node is only needed for fully "sovereign" solo — Public Pool installs on Umbrel with one click, and then your own node assembles the block; that's how block 937,218 was found in February 2026.

Which is better for a beginner — Bitaxe or NerdMiner? If the goal is to understand what stratum, shares and difficulty look like for $40 — NerdMiner. If you want even a theoretical shot at a block — only a Bitaxe Gamma. There's nothing in between: a NerdMiner is millions of times slower.

How do I know a block was found? A coinbase transaction arrives at your address, the pool reports the block in its stats, and Best Difficulty in AxeOS exceeds the current network difficulty. The coins become spendable after 100 confirmations — about 17 hours.

Does a Bitaxe work without internet or over mobile? Over a mobile hotspot — yes, the traffic is tiny. Without internet — no; the pool supplies the work.

This material is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Firmware versions, pool addresses, specifications and prices are given as of 11 September 2026 and may change; overclocking is at your own risk.