Open vs Closed Source Mining Tools | Bitcoin 2026

I was promised no no punches would be thrown, but um my name is Alex and I've been working the mining industry since 2021 selling mining hardware. I work with a company called Mega Miner now and I'm really excited about this conversation. Bitcoin mining hardware is fascinating and it's a very nuanced topic. So looking forward to getting into this. But yeah, guys, if you could all go down the line, introduce yourselves, talk about what you do in the mining space. Uh, >> well, sorry for that. >> Yeah, >> let's start with you, Joe, and go down the go down the line. >> Okay. Yeah, I'm Joe, cyber security engineer, uh, working as head of mining OS and MDK for Tether. Uh, it's been couple of years with Tether. I founded like a student association inside the poly techchnic of churin foc focused on bitcoin education research and development and then I started studying bitcoin mining and join joined tetar. So super excited for this panel. Thank you. All right. Hey, I'm Juan Clume. I'm the lead of the developer of the bedex project and opensource small home miner. I'm in this for over three years now and uh I'm really excited to talk about open and closed source here. Go for it. >> Hi, I am uh Averil uh Bitcoiner, class of 2013. Uh mining Bitcoin since 2015. Uh founded Alter Techch uh four years ago. We sell hardware. We are authorized Cananan distributors. Uh we've worked uh with OSMU quite a bit in the past. Uh Marshall Long, I've been mining since 2010. I'm currently uh founder of a company called Plebsource. We sell miniers. Uh the guys who actually run Pleb Source are here, not me. Um so they kind of just let me do whatever I want and I'm a master Twitter troll. Uh yeah, that's me. >> Great. Uh you starting off, you know, want clue, you're the representative on this panel of the open source side of things. Uh you know, what what are the issues that you're trying to solve and that you see in the just the full mining stack and why is open source important? So I think one of the most important things that we do have about Bitcoin mining or Bitcoin in general is that there's a fundamental issue with how Bitcoin has been operated these days. Bitcoin is the more or less only solution that most of us do see. That's the reason why we have all of these conferences and we do believe that there needs to be some sort of an extent where we have our own control over the things that we own especially about the money. The problem that it is that is in this industry is the mining itself is over 10 years not really open to the public. Not really understandable because these devices are not really belonging to you. You cannot really go into them or like try to understand how they do work and you cannot really change them or even trust what they're doing. I mean one of the biggest examples for that was ant bleed that happened a couple years ago where just by reverse engineering it was figured out that in devices are back doors built into them that allow you or the manufacturer to do whatever they want shut down your mining equipment that is quite a big thing especially when you think about you're running a megawatt industry and you don't want to have someone else press the red button on you so that primarily is one of the biggest reasons for me why I believe open source needs to come back. Especially I don't like having the audacity to go out there and tell the people that Bitcoin is the saving factor for the world. Yet onethird of it is just closed down. Cool. You know, Gio or Joe, um Tyler is one of the biggest miners in the world. How do you how do you face these concerns of, you know, hardware potentially being backdoored, you know, management software, things like that, prevent, you know, outside forces from either gaining information you might not want to share or uh, you know, even influencing your mining operation remotely? >> Yeah, I mean, nobody wants a back door inside this minor, even if it's a small one. So I think it's not a problem for for Tether as a company but it's problem is a problem for Bitcoin. So I think that having um clear in mind that this technology can save the world in so many so many ways. Uh it's important to you know to understand that it's something dangerous for for the network. So we know that and uh we are just trying to build our own technology especially when it comes to uh management tools. We have just announced it like this new MDK as a mining development kit basically commoditized software infrastructure to operate and maintain your sorry um operate your your mining sites. So basically an integration layer where you can operate every single device you have on site and abstract it uh as it was like a generic device and you can connect um AI agents or whatever you want to this specific engine to this specific um integration layer and operates whatever you want. So in terms of backdoor I I mean we don't know if there are back door out there but the only thing we can do is just build sovereign technology uh to enable us and everybody else to try to avoid this this bad consequences. >> Very cool. you know, Averil, uh, you sell to a lot of small miners who don't typically have the ability to build their own software and tools and might not be sophisticated enough to under really understand deeply what the hardware is doing, you know, and home applications, you know, this hardware is coming from China. Um is this something that you know concerns you or is a part of the education process with your customers uh or even a discussion topic in general uh potentials of you know just issues with hardware in general? I don't think this is I think for for our customers the most important thing is getting highest efficiency hash rate at the lowest dollar per terahash and you know if it's for a home application it has to be quiet it has to have wireless uh but I think open- source hardware really is a is a misnomer or a marketing term the the current term is open hardware not open source hardware so bit license is a certain OL a certain open hardware license, not an open- source hardware license. And I think the distinction is really important because open source comes from open-source code, which is a software term. Hardware is not made with source code. It's made with components. And it applying this into hardware, it just doesn't never work because if you look at a hardware, you cannot even close source it. As soon as it's released, you can look at it and you can see what components are there, how they're connected. So, open sourcing it doesn't change a lot. Also, if you look closely, there are components that are going to stay closed source. So, things like A6, MCUs, ESP32, display controller, these are all closed source components inside Bitaxis. Same for ant miners or any other miners. So I think I am not a fan of using this you know open source hardware and software terminology. I think to me it doesn't even make sense to call anything open opensource hardware because hardware is not built by compiling source code. So we don't use it in our marketing metrics. We don't acknowledge it. We we steer customers towards getting the highest hash rate at the lowest price. You know, Marshall, you um have been around a very long time as well and uh have seen the hardware industry change frequently. Uh you've recently been involved with uh selling these more open products and you know have beef. Uh do you have anything to build off of uh what Averil was talking about or you know what what do you think is important for people to understand about the hardware landscape right now? >> Sure. That's a good question. So, first thing I want to point out is I got a lot of respect for the guys that started the Bitex movement. I think it's a great idea. But on along the same lines, I for me what I want I've been in the game for a long time. I want the most amount of people that can have hash rate running in whatever capacity they can. Right? So for me, the driving force is I want good products that aren't fire hazards. And one thing I want to really kind of put to bed is this whole like, oh, China bad. If you think China's bad, you haven't been to China in the past decade. Like, let me give you a good example. Apple Watch, that crystal on that Apple Watch cannot be manufactured in the States. We don't fucking know how. That can only be manufactured in China. That's just one example. The the culture of Chinese engineering by virtue of how they operate. People do more specialization, more deep technology. That's not saying every manufacturer in China is great. A lot of them are trash. However, and this is coming from us, we manufacture in Houston. We manufacture in Europe and we manufacture in China. We run our own stuff, our own SMT. My partner who runs all the Chinese SMT is right here in the front row. If you want a tour of the place, go. Any SMT that you have, it needs to be about quality, not location necessarily. I want to sell good products at a competitive rate that is more competitive as far as do you open source it or not. This like open- source license, here's the here's the facts. A license is only good is only as good as your ability to enforce it. Same thing with a patent. Same thing with a trademark. If I have a patent, and I have several, if somebody infringes on it, it's the question is, do I want to pursue them to stop them from doing that? I have the legal basis to do that, but it costs money and maybe it's not worth the time. So, just period for any US patent law, that's really the the case. If you want to enforce a license, you have to do that and that costs money. Now that being said, what the open- source guys did for Bitex opened a whole new world. Credit where it's due. Outside of that, it's really about the technical advantages. I'll give you an example. So, our stuff that we manufacture, we do power and serial. All the uh open- source open-source miners, they do power in parallel. I think the serial is a better design. It's a more complicated design. takes more engineering to get that done, but my design is more robust, cooler, and cheaper because I don't have voltage rags all over the board. That's that's the first thing I would say is it's the design can be different. And the reason that I choose to encrypt my firmware is a competitive advantage because I think I have better firmware. I think I have a better design than other people. And I don't want my competitors to be able to knock it off. That being said, it's because our end goal is to get as much hash rate in the hands of as many people at the lowest cost of entry, period. So that the whole open source versus not, I don't really care. I want great products at the most competitive price so that I can compete and therefore I decide to lock my firmware down so other people can't take my IP because I don't want to pursue somebody over a market cap. the total addressable market is, I don't know, probably less than $50 million. It's not worth pursuing anybody over. So, my only choice is to outenineer people. Therefore, my cost can go down so I can compete better on pricing. Cool. Just out of curiosity, could I see a show of hands from the audience of people that run Bitaxes at home? Cool. So I think one of the I mean the Bax has become a pretty big thing pretty quickly. Uh a lot of people have them in their homes. One of the parts of the project that I've been the most excited about is people being excited about getting their hands on Bitcoin miners uh and just learning about the process, learning about the the nuances of the hardware industry. It's a it's a great educational process you not just from people running them but from people manufacturing them and and um I I I think that has been awesome to watch um like seeing what Econo Alchemist is doing. I've gotten to see his whole setup with what he's building. Uh but yeah u clude do you have any responses uh to that? uh you know a huge part of the uh Bitax is not just you know the physical hardware itself but also the firmware which you've been involved with. Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean one thing that is really important to us is definitely the fact that it is not negotiable that we do think yes there is a certain factor for companies to go out there and say all right I do have a product I developed that on my own it's going to be mine. I mean, how many of us are using iPhones or other products? None of this is open source. That's not the point. The point is that we go out there and we are having a society or even the financial system that we are trying or at least we are involving into Bitcoin. And just going out there and having a system that is so fundamentally fundamentally different to the current fiat system doesn't in my opinion have the option to stay close source. And a primary issue with that is that I do see the benefits of why companies want their devices to be closed down. That is it is there. It is it is the thing. And there's nothing against to say that. The biggest problem that is happening is that you see companies going out there and taking your stuff and making that close source again while going out there and claiming they have developed something on their own. Yet you just need like two minutes to figure out that's not the case. half of that is stolen that it is it is kind of wild. I mean don't get me wrong it is at the one hand it is totally fine because it proves what you did is fantastic. So others want to use that. So that is great. The the only problem is I I want to have a choice if I use my device. There are certain improvements when it comes to hardware on certain other devices. There are disadvantages on other devices than on others. So everything has has pros and cons but if I have the option and I can choose I personally say I prefer open source and the same also goes for the hardware. I do understand that it is not as easy as with software to make it open source especially when you think about chipping them out getting them through the entire system and making chips especially AS6. In the end of the day, it is it is code like an ASIC chip or an FPGA. If you want to build that, that's not just some fancy line drawing. No, you need to write program. You need to write a program to manufacture them. Then they go through these expensively machines and get w on a waiver and everything else. We're complicated shit. But that is that is code. So technically it could be possible to make something open source. Yet we need to realize we are in a world where this will not happen. So I agree with you that you would say all right we will not see any opensource hardware like an asexure very soon. The same goes for for the proto that we do see from from the block uh company. They already said that they will open source the firmware but for the hardware they can't. Not because they don't want to maybe but the primary factor is if you want to produce chips. If you want to produce components hardware you need to rely on other companies and they have strict rules that forbid you of doing that. That all aside, I personally want to have the freedom and I think it is hard to argue against user freedom. >> What's your philosophy on on this, Gio? >> I mean, it's pretty simple. I think that basically um open source is just a way to build like good software. If you think about it, uh, think about Bitcoin. We are here for that, you know. You know, if Bitcoin was like closed source, it wouldn't exist basically. But I mean, it's a good way to to build open uh to build good software and safe software and secure software, but I also I also see the point of building closed source software for making money. I mean, it's uh it does make sense and and uh you want to save some um you know, competitive advantage, I would say. So, it makes sense. My only take on this is that this has been the case for the last 20 30 40 years but now we are the world is changing and so we have to say that let's say my vision on this is if you want to build something that is going to last for the next 40 years you build it open source because this is going to be like built in a proper way and either is software or whatever. If you want to build something that can let you make a lot of money, u you build it closers maybe. Um, but the point is that especially for software, but I'm sure it's going to be the case also for for for hardware in the next years is that with AI right now, you know, intelligence is commoditized. So we are not talking about close or or open. You build a a prop proprietary tool with a good feature uh you can just copy it you know you could just reverse engineering easily and make it. So you know SAS is that uh every every single thing we we you think to build to get a competitive advantage in terms of knowledge it's not a competitive advantage because it's going to be copied. So I think that's the case for software for sure. So making like SAS and make your competition on the last feature doesn't make any sense anymore. But I think it's going to be the same for hardware. Maybe not now because hardware is still connected to something physical. So you you can um as you said um Avi you it's not about the the composition of of the components in the hardware but it's about the component itself you know. So let's say in a minor you see the ASIC and and how can you reverse the reverse engineer in the the Azic you can try to it's it's a bit complicated. I'm sure it's going to be easier and easier in the future but then you you need like the the hardware to to to manufacture it. So again I'm sure that in the future it's going to be easier. So far it's not. But my take on this right now is just that we don't need to have like open source ASICS now. But the most important thing for me is just to separate the idea of a minor and ASIC. So the ASIC is the chip and the minor is what you build around. So I love for example the hash rate the heat punks movement. They're building like boilers you know using um AIS. there's they're building like solar panels using AS6. I love that kind of solutions. So I don't I don't think we need like right now open-source ASIX. I just think that opening more the environment will create a lot of new use cases that are going to be very very useful for for a Bitcoin network. So again just just to summarize it I really think that right now we have uh these closed versus open environment in the future again intelligence is going to be commoditized so it's everything is going to be open to everybody. So yeah, that's my take. >> Definitely. >> Welcome to predict. The world is a market. Everything is a market. Every headline moves the line. Every moment is your market. Call the moves. Bet on your instinct, your prediction, your edge. Dual bits. Predict where everything is a market. I mean, this conversation isn't recently contentious. It's it's been one for a long time. You know, the the firmware developers love to uh argue with each other and point fingers. Uh you know, a lot of people have used CG minor in one way or another and that's been controversial. Uh you know, Hil, what's your your take on this? Uh what what do you think the optimal like ethical way to just interact with the products that people are building uh is and to to build products yourself? >> Can you rephrase that question? >> Like do you think there's an optimal ethical way to build products you know hardware firmware in general? You know, some people say it's unethical to take somebody's open source work and then roll it into your own uh closed source and claim that it's yours. >> Sure. So, I think it all depends on the license. Uh CG minor was MIC license if I remember correctly and I think what many companies did with it was illegal, but they probably never got sued. Uh many of them were based in China. >> Uh I'll repeat again. So yeah, I think CG minor what happened with it is was probably illegal according to the license it was released under. Uh but I don't think they ever got sued. Coming back to hardware, I think it's a completely different story with hardware, right? Like what OSMU has, I mean I will congratulate them that they probably allowed 100,000 plus miners to get their first minor. But I think the innovation there was ESP32 integration with the ASC itself which uh lowered the cost of controller by an order of magnitude. Uh not the open- source part of ESP minor, right? That's that's kind of what I would contend. Uh I think going back to history of this see the ethics are related to the licensing that you attach to the product. But going back to the history of this, I see a lot of people promoting you know FOS or GTFO or demand open source. Uh what that means for the hardware developers is they are being pushed into thinking that this is the Bitcoin way. You should just open source all your work, right? Spend hours and hours and hours and just give it all away. But this approach has actually almost never worked. If you look around, there is no real successful open source hardware. you know, not your phone, not your watch, not your car, not your fridge, not this microphone. It's been tried many, many times. Uh, look at Makerbot, look at Prussa for for 3D printers, it fails every single time. Either these companies pivot to closed source or they just go out of business. Uh, so I think to demand, you know, FOS or GTFO idea is sending developers down the wrong path of ruin. uh instead of going straight to the market by making proprietary products, they're now forced to go to a foundation for a donation for their work to support themselves. And you know, you're welcome to try it again. I think this idea doesn't work and it's just going to it's just going to lead to wasted effort. The foundation themselves are open to political capture or, you know, ideological suicide. We've seen these with 501c3s over and over. Uh I mean we just saw this with Electronic Frontier Foundation uh Vikime Media Foundation right highly sensor like it's it just keeps happening SPLC. So I think depending on uh to say that we're there to destroy the proprietary mining empire but then you know lobby to their own foundations to fund your open source work. I think that's hypocrisy and it's going to be a dead end no matter what. >> Thanks. Maybe just a quick response to that. There there is a really important difference to make between open source minus united as like this community and I know that there has been a lot of debate going around between the donation that has been received and an small entity that is its own company which has claimed to receive them but yet refunded all of that. >> Which small entity? Ben, >> I wasn't talking about that. >> Unfortunately, I mean, this is a very nuanced, complicated topic that we could probably talk about for I don't know what do you think, like 24 hours straight if we could. Um, Marshall, I just want to give you a chance uh we got a minute and a half left uh to respond to anything that you want to share. >> Yeah, look, I'm a capitalist, okay? So, if you want to buy uh open-source whatever, buy it. My goal is to build something that's better than what you can buy and to also protect my competitive edge. But that doesn't mean that you can't go buy something that might be more expensive because you want to tinker on it. Look, there's a market. That's fine. That's not my goal. My goal is to get as much hash rate in as many hands as possible. I don't care about anything else. So, uh, at the end of the day, if if you think that it's important for you to be able to tinker or tune or contribute to a project, look, Bitcoin Core has had its own fair share of problems, right? Like, it's just it's not a business model. It's impossibly hard to I mean, one clue's done a lot of great work, but I mean, it's thankless work at the end of the day. It's really hard to get paid to do that and you're reliant on other people's ability to donate. When the weather's good, it's it's it's fine. When the weather's not good, it's tough. Which means all the smart people have a high tendency to get washed out. To Averil's point, so the the that my goal is to provide as many people a low entry point. I don't care about anything else. Bitcoin's changed my life. Change everybody's life on this stage. And I think what's most important is to try to drive decentralization through low barrier to entry with hardware. I don't care about anything else. >> Well, very cool. That's it. We got to wrap up, but um I think we'll all be around uh this week if you want to talk to any of us. Uh keep the conversation going. But all of these guys on this panel incredibly incredibly knowledgeable. Thank you for guys for being on it. Let's give them a big round of applause. Every year, this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year, the stage gets bigger. Sound money, center stage. So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.