On this website you can learn how to:

• Create a bitcoin wallet [in progress]

• Setup a bitcoin node

• Setup a lightning node

• Mine bitcoin

• Secure your bitcoins [in progress]

For in-person workshops checkout Bitcoin Network NYC.

In this tutorial we setup our own Bitcoin node from scratch! What is covered:

• Buy, assemble and flash a Raspberry Pi

• Download, compile and install the original Bitcoin Core software

• Download, compile and install a modern Electrum server in Rust

• Connect your wallets to your node through the Tor protocol

Credits

This tutorial would have not been possible without TheRoadToNode and Harry Bawsac.

This is the hardware I use in this tutorial:

• Raspberry Pi 5 or Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB of RAM

• 2TB portable SSD

You'll find that on Amazon or anywhere else.

When you're done you should always lock your Jade.

Simply select Session > Logout:

Now you can power off the Jade by pressing and holding the power button.

On your phone, install the following apps:

Now back to your phone:

1. Start Orbot, wait to be successfully connected to Tor

2. Open BlueWallet, click on the 3 dots at the top right

3. Got to Network > Lightning Settings

4. Scan the LNDHub QR code and save the changes

You can now create as many Lightning wallets as you’d like from your phone.

1. Back on the BlueWallet home screen, click the "+" in the top right.

2. To create a new wallet, select the Lightning option

3. You should see your Node URI pre-completed

4. Click Create and you’re done, you have a new mobile lightning wallet!

You can share the LNDHub QR code with friends and family and they will also be able to create wallets and manage their funds.

Congratulations, you are done!

Setup

From a computer on the same network, access your node at http://umbrel.local.

Follow the setup steps. Leave all settings at default and choose a strong password.

Remote access

For now, the node is only accessible on your home network. To enable remote access from anywhere, we'll use Tor. In Umbrel OS, go to Settings and turn on Remote Tor access.

A .onion address is generated and you can now access your node from anywhere through Tor.

If you had to factory reset your Jade or lost it and had to buy a new one, you can easily restore your wallet as long as you have your seed phrase.

Select Setup Jade > Continue > Begin Setup > Restore Wallet > 12 Words and enter each of your seed works in the correct order.

Then you'll be prompted to pair the Jade with green wallet and setup a new PIN the same way than during the wallet creation step.

• Lightning wallets can be recovered with their BlueWallet connection string.

• Funds in channels can be recovered using Static Channel Backups (SCBs)

  • /umbrel/lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet/channel.backup

To be able to send payments we must open channels on other nodes and lock BTC.

This is called outbound liquidity, where locked funds are on our side of the channel.

Open the Lightning Node application. Scroll down and click on + OPEN CHANNEL.

2. Copy the Node ID (format pubkey@ip:port)

   1. Example, Kraken’s Node ID ⇒ 02f1a8c87607f415c8f22c00593002775941dea48869ce23096af27b0cfdcc0b69@52.13.118.208:9735

3. Select the amount of BTC to be locked in the channel
4. Adjust the transaction fee (the higher the fee, the faster the channel opens)

   1. It can take anywhere from ~30 minutes to 24 hours.

Download Pi Imager

Choose OS image

Now connect the portable SSD to your computer and launch the Pi Imager. First you have to select 3 options:

• Raspberry Pi Device: Choose Raspberry Pi 5 or Raspberry Pi 4 depending on the model you use.

• Operating System: Choose Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)

• Storage: Select your portable SSD

Apply custom settings

Click on Next. The imager will now show a popup to ask you if you want to apply customisation settings. Click on Edit Settings.

General Tab

• Set a hostname for the Pi on your local network

• Set a username and password (this will create a new user)

• Add your Wi-fi settings (that way the Pi will auto-connect at boot)

• Set locale settings by inputing your timezone and keyboard layout

Services Tab

In the previous tab, we ensured the creation of a new user and automatic Wi-Fi connection at boot. In this tab, we will set up an SSH service to enable direct login to the Pi after it boots.

First we must generate a pair of keys for our user:

Next we must copy the content of the public key (*.pub). Now in the Services tab of the Pi Imager:

• Click Enable SSH

• Choose Allow public-key authentication only

• Copy the content of the public key

Click Save, we are now done with the customizations.

Flash the OS

Back on the customisation popup, click Yes to apply the settings you just inputed. Click Yes again to flash the OS onto the SSD.

Once it's done, safely eject the SSD from your computer.

Do this frequently:

Choose a connection method

Open Electrs, you'll notice 2 methods of connecting: Local Network and Tor.

Local Network

If you connect via local network, your wallet won’t be able to reach your node when you leave home. In addition SSL is disabled by default which means your data transits in clear on your local network.

Tor

Tor is excellent for security and privacy. Additionally, by having our Electrum server behind an onion hidden service, we benefit from:

• End-to-end encryption

• Client and server anonymization

Connect your wallet to your node

The setup is simple: just add your Electrum server's address and port to your wallet's node settings.

If you're connecting through Tor, you'll likely need to configure your wallet to use Tor's proxy (127.0.0.1:9050) and ensure Tor is running (unless your wallet comes bundled with it).

Plug the portable SSD into a USB 3.0 port on the Pi, then connect the Pi to power. Wait approximately 10 minutes for the installation process and the first boot to complete.

To connect your wallet to your node, simply add your Electrum server's address and port in the wallet's network settings.

You will find your Electrum server's address here:

sudo cat /var/lib/tor/electrs_hidden_service/hostname

The port is 50001 unless you specified otherwise.

We will cover two methods of setting up your own Lightning node:

• The easy way with Umbrel OS

• The advanced way from sources

Make sure you got everything from the Hardware list. Then assemble it as follow:

1. Insert the microSD card into the Raspberry Pi.

2. Connect the SSD to the Raspberry Pi via a USB 3.0 port.

3. Use an RJ45 cable to connect the Raspberry Pi to your modem/router.

4. Plug in the Raspberry Pi’s power supply.

This is the hardware I use in this tutorial.

• Raspberry Pi 4 or 5, with 8GB of RAM

• 2TB external SSD with USB connectivity

• 32GB micro SD card

• micro SD adapter

• RJ 45 cable

You'll find that on Amazon or anywhere else.

Eventually you can also buy a protective case for the pi.

Jade wallet is designed and manufactured by Blockstream, a company founded by Adam Back.

The Jade is 100% open source:

• Firmware

• Hardware

For us to receive payments, other nodes must open channels to our node & lock BTC.

This is inbound liquidity, where locked funds are on the other side of the channel.

1. Select how much BTC you want LNBig to lock into the channel

   1. The larger the channel, the higher the opening fee LNBig charges

2. Make a pre-payment via lightning

3. Enter your Lightning Node ID, which is exposed via Tor. To find it:

   1. In Umbrel open the Lightning Node application

   2. Click the three dots on the top right side

   3. Click on Node ID

   4. Select Network > Tor and copy the the Node ID

4. LNBig will now attempt to connect to your node; this may take some time

6. As soon as you’re done, you’ll see the incoming channel from LNBig opening.

Verify what your current version is:

Fetch the latest changes:

Show the latest version tags:

Switch to the latest stable version:

Clear files and outputs from the previous build process:

Now create the configuration files:

Use one of the following two commands to apply the configuration files:

Compile the source code:

Once the compilation is done, we stop Electrs and bitcoind:

Now we can update the binaries system-wide:

Finally we can restart bitcoind and Electrs:

You can check your new version with:

Download

Download either umbrelos-pi4.img.zip or umbrelos-pi5.img.zip depending on your pi model.

Once it's downloaded, unzip it and find the .img file.

Flash

Connect the micro SD to your computer via the adapter. Next, find your micro SD block device name:

If the micro SD was automatically mounted, ensure you unmount it along with any potentially mounted partitions. For example:

Now we can flash the .img into the micro SD:

Wait for the prompt to return, this can take a while. Once finished you can safely eject the micro SD.

If Rust and Cargo binaries aren't in your path, run:

Update Rust and Cargo:

Update rustup:

Check the new versions:

Now, update all packages installed with Cargo by running:

If you encounter an error because cargo-update is not installed, install it using:

You can now connect to your Pi via SSH using the private key you created previously:

or

For this tutorial, we use the original Jade wallet, which can be purchased from Blockstream's shop:

The Jade comes with a battery. To charge it, you can use the provided USB to USB-C cable.

Update Node.js to the latest version:

Update npm to the latest version globally:

Update all globally installed npm packages:

An Electrum server is an indexing layer built on top of Bitcoin Core. It enables more efficient blockchain queries and easier wallet connections. Most wallets support Electrum connections.

Get latest stable version

First clone the repo:

cd ~

git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git

Next we need to make sure to use the latest stable version. To find it, list the latest tags:

cd bitcoin/

git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=20`

The output will look like this:

v28.1
v28.1rc2-6-g36314b8da2
v28.1rc2-5-g58910279dc
v28.1rc2-4-g6a68ef9bfb
v28.1rc2-3-g5b368f88a9
v28.1rc2-2-g05cd448e33
v28.1rc2-1-g621c634b7f
v28.1rc2
v28.1rc1-10-g5576618152
v28.1rc1-9-g01fe07a2ce
v28.1rc1-8-g7ddfcf32da
v28.1rc1-7-ge0b27b234c
v28.1rc1-6-gbdc6b3e531
v28.1rc1-5-ga0585b6087
v28.1rc1-4-gbbde830b97
v28.1rc1-3-g227642d5af
v28.1rc1-2-gb8112cf422
v28.1rc1-1-g2835158be0
v28.1rc1
v28.0-15-g8fef83a0a0

From top (newest) to bottom (oldest) tags, the latest stable version is v28.1.

Now we can switch to that version:

git checkout <version-tag> # Example: git checkout v28.1

Compile and Install

Create the configuration files:

./autogen.sh

Use one of the following two commands to apply the configuration files:

./configure --without-gui # OPTION 1: Wallet functionalty enabled
./configure --without-gui --disable-wallet # OPTION 2: Wallet functionality disabled

Now compile the source code:

make -j $(nproc)

Finally, copy the binaries to system-wide directories:

sudo make install

Installation

Go to the Umbrel app store and install the Lightning node application. This app is a GUI for the Lightning Network Daemon (LND), the most common Bitcoin Lightning implementation. Launch the application and leave all settings at default.

Node's wallet

You will get prompted to link a wallet to the node. You can use an existing wallet or create a new one.

The Lightning Node needs a Bitcoin wallet to manage funds and open channels.

Fetch the latest changes:

cd ~/electrs

git fetch --all

Show the latest version tags:

git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=20`

Switch to the latest stable version:

git checkout -f <version-tag>

Stop Electrs:

sudo systemctl stop electrs.service

Source the env file and compile

. "$HOME/.cargo/env"

cargo build --locked --release

Start electrs:

sudo systemctl start electrs.service

Verify the new version:

~/electrs/target/release/electrs --version

We must fund our node to enable sending and receiving payments on the Lightning Network.

Open the Lightning Node application. Under the Bitcoin Wallet section, click Deposit. You can now send some bitcoin to the address displayed.

The Jade supports multiple modes:

• Bluetooth: Wireless connection to the Green Wallet app on your phone.

• USB: Direct connection to your computer using a cable.

• QR: Air-gapped communication by scanning QR codes.

• Micro SD: Air-gapped communication by using microSD cards.

Before you get started with the tutorial, install Green wallet on your phone:

• IOS

• Android

This wallet is fully open source:

• IOS sources

• Android sources

Fetch the latest changes:

cd ~/btc-rpc-explorer

git fetch --all

Show the latest version tags:

git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=20`

Switch to the latest stable version:

git checkout -f <version-tag>

Stop BTC RPC Explorer:

sudo systemctl stop btc-rpc-explorer.service

Update the dependencies:

npm update

Install the updates:

npm install

Once it's done, you can start BTC RPC Explorer again:

sudo systemctl start btc-rpc-explorer.service

Go to the Umbrel app store and download the Bitoin Node application. This app is pretty much a wrapper of Bitcoin Core with a very nice GUI (sources here).

Launch it and go through the setup by simply leaving all settings at default. Your node will now connect to remote peers to download and verify the entire blockchain.

Anytime you want to use your wallet to send or receive bitcoins you will have to unlock it.

Press and hold the power button to turn on the Jade. Then select Unlock Jade:

Now on your phone, open Green Wallet and proceed with Bluetooth pairing using the same method as for the wallet creation in the previous step. Once the pairing is complete, you will be prompted to enter your PIN on your Jade.

Once you've entered your PIN, your Jade is unlocked and you can use the mobile app to send and receive BTC.

Power Button

Press and hold to turn on / turn off your Jade.

Wheel

Turn left or right to switch between options

Select button

Press to select an option

To receive Bitcoin, simply hit Receive at the bottom right of Green wallet:

Share the QR code or Bitcoin address to the sender. Once the funds are sent, the incoming transaction should show up pretty quickly in Green wallet.

An Electrum server is an indexing layer built on top of Bitcoin Core. It enables more efficient blockchain queries and easier wallet connections. Most wallets support Electrum.

Install Electrs

Clone the repo:

Source the env file to update your $PATH with Rust & Cargo binaries:

Now you can compile electrs:

Once it's done, test the compilation was successful by checking the version:

Configure Electrs

Create the configuration file:

Add the following configuration to the config.toml file we just created:

• daemon_rpc_addr: Bitcoin JSON-RPC API address and port.

• daemon_p2p_addr: Bitcoin P2P address and port.

• db_dir: Directory where Electrs store its index file.

• electrum_rpc_addr: Electrum will run only on localhost, on port 50001.

Create Tor hidden service

We need to create a Tor hidden service to connect our wallets to the Electrum server. Edit the conf file:

Add the following:

Save it then restart tor:

Configure systemd service

Create the service file:

Add the following:

Line 6,7,8 and 9 make sure to replace your_user by your own user. Finally, reload systemd:

Startup

Configure Electrs to automatically start at boot:

Start Electrs:

Electrum will now connect to Bitcoin Core to build its own index of the blockchain.

Monitoring

Check the logs and monitor progress in real time:

To send Bitcoin, hit Send at the bottom left of Green wallet:

Next, enter the recipient's bitcoin address or scan the QR code and hit Next:

Select the amount of bitcoin you wish to send and hit Next:

Slide to send the transaction:

You are now informed that you must confirm the transaction on your Jade:

Review the transaction:

And finally, confirm it:

On Green wallet you should see a confirmation that the transaction has been sent:

We will cover two methods of setting up your own bitcoin node:

Update the system

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Disable SSH Password Login

In the SSH configuration, make sure password login is disabled (PasswordAuthentication no)

sudo cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config | grep PasswordAuthentication

Setup a firewall

We need to setup a firewall to restrict inbound traffic for our node.

First we install it:

sudo apt install ufw

By default ufw denies all incoming traffic so we must allow inbound SSH traffic before we enable it:

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp

Now we can enable the firewall:

sudo ufw enable

We can check the status with those commands:

sudo ufw status

sudo ufw status verbose

Install Tor

Install Tor:

sudo apt install tor

Add your user:

sudo usermod -a -G debian-tor your-user

You must log out and log back in for the changes to take effect.

Finally we can enable Tor at boot and start it:

sudo systemctl enable tor

sudo systemctl start tor

Install Bitcoin Core dependencies

The following packages will be needed to install Bitcoin Core:

sudo apt install git automake autoconf autotools-dev build-essential cmake make pkg-config protobuf-compiler libminiupnpc-dev libprotobuf-dev libdb++-dev libzmq3-dev libsqlite3-dev libboost-thread-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-all-dev libevent-dev libtool libssl-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev

Install Node.js

The steps to install Node.js 23 are detailed here.

Install curl:

sudo apt install curl

Download the setup script:

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_23.x -o nodesource_setup.sh

Run it:

sudo -E bash nodesource_setup.sh

Install node:

sudo apt install nodejs

Verify the installation:

node -v

And also update npm to the latest version:

sudo npm install -g npm@latest

Install Rust and Cargo

Install dependencies:

sudo apt install -y clang cmake

Install Rust and Cargo:

curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

Startup

Configure bitcoind to automatically start at boot:

sudo systemctl enable bitcoind.service

Start bitcoind:

sudo systemctl start bitcoind.service

Initial Synchronization

Your node will now connect to other peers to download and verify the entire blockchain, block by block, starting from the genesis block on January 3, 2009.

Monitoring

Logs

To view the Bitcoin Core logs:

tail -f ~/.bitcoin/debug.log

You can monitor progress live by checking for height= or progress=.

bitcoin-cli

bitcoin-cli is part of Bitcoin Core and serves as a command-line interface for the JSON-RPC API.

Node Status

You can use it to monitor the status of your node and the synchronization progress:

bitcoin-cli -getinfo

Network Info

You can use it to check your integration with the P2P network:

bitcoin-cli getnetworkinfo

If you're using Tor, note in the output how Bitcoin used the Tor control port to create an onion service for P2P on port 8333.

[...]
"localaddresses": [
    {
        "address": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.onion",
        "port": 8333,
        "score": 4
    }
[...]

Blockchain Data

Get the current block height:

bitcoin-cli getblockcount

Get some blockchain statstics:

bitcoin-cli getblockchaininfo

Post Synchronization

Once fully synchronized, edit Bitcoin's config file located at ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf, and lower the value of dbcache to 500. Then, restart Bitcoin:

sudo systemctl restart bitcoind.service

Bitcoin wallets:

• Jade Hardware Wallet

You can learn how to mine bitcoin remotely using managed solution or how to mine at home using open source miners.

• Remote mining

• Home mining

BTC RPC Explorer is essentially a web GUI for the Bitcoin JSON-RPC API. It is highly useful for node monitoring, management, and as a blockchain explorer.

Install BTC RPC Explorer

Get the latest stable release

Clone the repo:

cd ~

git clone https://github.com/janoside/btc-rpc-explorer.git

cd btc-rpc-explorer/

Show the latest version tags:

git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=20`

Switch to the latest stable version:

git checkout -f <version-tag>

Install

Update local dependencies within version ranges specified in package.json:

npm update

Install:

npm install

npm install zeromq@latest

npm install nan@latest

Then try installing again:

npm install

Configure

Create the config file:

touch .env

Add the following:

BTCEXP_HOST=192.168.1.52
BTCEXP_PORT=3002
BTCEXP_BITCOIND_HOST=127.0.0.1
BTCEXP_BITCOIND_PORT=8332
BTCEXP_BITCOIND_COOKIE=/home/your_user/.bitcoin/.cookie
BTCEXP_BITCOIND_RPC_TIMEOUT=5000
BTCEXP_PRIVACY_MODE=true
BTCEXP_BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD=your_secure_password
BTCEXP_ADDRESS_API=electrum
BTCEXP_ELECTRUM_SERVERS=tcp://127.0.0.1:50001

• BTCEXP_HOST: Replace with your Pi's local IP to make BTC RPC Explorer accessible on your LAN.

• BTCEXP_BITCOIND_COOKIE: Update the path with your own user.

• BTCEXP_BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD: Set a strong password to secure access.

Configure systemd service

Create the service file:

sudo cat /etc/systemd/system/btc-rpc-explorer.service

Add the following:

[Unit]
Description=BTC-RPC-Explorer
Requires=electrs.service
After=electrs.service
[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/home/your_user/btc-rpc-explorer
ExecStart=npm run start
User=your_user
Group=your_user
Type=simple
Restart=on-failure
TimeoutSec=120
RestartSec=30
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Line 6,8 and 9 make sure to replace your_user by your own user.

Finally, reload systemd:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Startup

Configure BTC-RPC Explorer to automatically start at boot:

sudo systemctl enable btc-rpc-explorer.service

Start BTC-RPC Explorer:

sudo systemctl start btc-rpc-explorer.service

You'll see a popup asking you to enter a username and password. The username doesn't matter; just use the password you set up in the .env file.

Issue with Node Details page

The page /node-details of BTC RPC Explorer throws an error. I suck at coding but I was able to fix it with ChatGPT.

Edit the below file:

vim views/node-details.pug

At line 29, replace this block of code:

if (getblockchaininfo.warnings && getblockchaininfo.warnings.trim().length > 0)
	+contentSection("Active Warnings")
		if (getblockchaininfo.warnings && getblockchaininfo.warnings.trim().length > 0)
			span.text-danger #{getblockchaininfo.warnings}
		else
			span.text-success None

By this one:

if (getblockchaininfo.warnings)
	+contentSection("Active Warnings")
		if (getblockchaininfo.warnings)
			span.text-danger #{getblockchaininfo.warnings}
		else
			span.text-success None

(Basically I removed getblockchaininfo.warnings.trim().length > 0 in both if statements).

Make sure to restart BTC RPC Explorer and the page should be working:

sudo systemctl restart btc-rpc-explorer.service

Tor

I personally wouldn't risk exposing this app to the outside world. It has some bugs, is vulnerable to brute-force attacks, and stores the password in a plain text .env file.

If I ever do, I will ensure that the features enabling manual Bitcoin JSON-RPC API calls are disabled.

Press and hold the power button to start the Jade.

Select Setup Jade > Continue > Begin Setup:

Next select Create Wallet > Continue:

Write down your seed words on a piece of paper or another non-digital medium.

Next, go through the seed verification process by confirming a few words:

Next we must select the connection mode we will use with the Jade. Choose Bluetooth:

Notice your device name, here Jade 800E88:

Now open Green wallet on your phone, accept the terms & conditions and choose On Hardware Wallet:

Next click on Connect Jade:

Select your Jade wallet:

If prompted, allow bluetooth pairing and take note of the code:

On your Jade, make sure that the code is the same and confirm authentication:

Your Jade and Green wallet should now be paired. Hit Continue:

You should now see a screen prompting you to create a PIN. Hit Continue:

On your Jade you should now be prompted to choose a PIN:

Back on Green wallet, you should see a success screen. Now Hit Create Account:

Choose Standard:

Your Bitcoin wallet is now ready to send and receive BTC!

Introduction

With remote mining you can get into Bitcoin mining without worrying about hardware installation and maintenance.

Benefits of mining Bitcoin

For short term ROI, you're better of buying Bitcoin directly. Long term, I believe it has 2 benefits:

1. Diversification: In terms of energy flow, I like the idea of a small continuous amount of Bitcoin flowing into my wallet. I believe in redundancy and I don't want 100% of my Bitcoin sitting in cold storage.

2. Acquisition: Getting your hands on new Bitcoins could become much harder as countries fomo into it. The available supply of BTC on exchanges is continuously decreasing:

Mining costs

Below are the most important costs to consider before you start mining Bitcoin remotely:

1. Hardware cost (A single miner costs thousand of dollars)

2. Energy cost (expressed in dollar per kilowatt-hour, or in short $/kWh)

3. Management fee (mining farms can charge you an extra fee for hardware maintenance)

Choosing the right miner

When buying a new Bitcoin miner, there are 2 important things you must consider.

Hashrate

The computational power of a Bitcoin miner is measured by its hasharate. The hashrate indicates how many hashes per second the miner can compute.

In 2025, the hashrate is commonly expressed in terahashes per second (TH/s).

1 TH/s = 1 trillion hashes per second

For example, the Antminer S21 Pro has a hashrate of 234 TH/s.

Efficiency

The efficiency of a miner is measured by how much energy the miner needs to consume to compute 1 terahash (TH). It's usually expressed in joules per terahash (J/TH) or watt per terahash (W/TH).

Efficiency (J/TH or W/TH) = Power (W) / Hashrate (TH/s)

Example, the S21 Pro has a hashrate of 234 TH/s and a power of 3510 W

3510 / 234 = 15

The S21 Pro has an efficiency of 15J/TH which is Tier 1 (excellent).

Conclusion

You need to find the best combination of hashrate and efficiency for your budget.

Mining Fluctuations

This is a more complex topic for which I will make a dedicated section. Roughly speaking, 3 key factors will impact your day to day profitability:

• Fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin

• Fluctuations in your electricity bill

• Flucutations in the mining difficulty

Miners must also consider halvings, which occur approximately every four years and reduce the block reward by half.

How to start mining Bitcoin remotely

To start mining Bitcoin remotely you need to find a farm where you can buy or rent Bitcoin miners. You must also make sure that they offer managed services (miners setup & maintenance).

So far I found one reliable farm but I will update this page when I find more.

Cyberian Mine

Cyberian Mine is a german company with mining farms located in Siberia (Russia).

Pros

• Cheap cost per kWh (as I write this, $0.0608/kWh)

• Recent hardware

• Quick onboarding (same-day)

• Powered by sustainable energy

• Lifetime hosting contract (you don't pay for hardware repair or replacement)

• Stable hashrate (you keep earning during repairs/replacements)

• Almost all cryptos are accepted for payment

• New farm locations opening in Ethiopia and USA

• No management fee

• Awesome team and fast support

• You can buy partial miners (e.g. 1/10 of an Antminer T21)

• You can resell your hardware instantly (at a discount) or on their marketplace

Cons

• Miners are more expensive (to cover for the lifetime warranty, automatic failover & 0 mngmt fees)

• They only mine on F2Pool and the minimum payout is 0.005 BTC

• You have a claim to the miner but do not own it physically (it cannot be shipped to you)

• Location (Russian laws & regulations can be unstable and change quickly)

How to start mining with Cyberian Mine

1. Create an account

2. Fund your account with crypto or fiat

3. Go to the store

1. Buy a full or partial miner

2. Wait a few hours for your miner to go live

Once your miner is live, you're able to see your performance metrics:

More metrics are also available on your Cyberian Dashboard, such as the hashrate report, Bitcoin earnings and pool payout schedule. You will also find your invoices for the electricity (hosting fee) with a daily breakdown in your profile's settings.

Bonus

• If you keep more than 500 euros in your balance, you get hosting discounts.

• Cyberian has a great telegram channel for support and updates.

Configure Bitcoin Core

Base Configuration

Let's create the needed files:

Add the following configuration to the bitcoin.conf file we just created:

JSON-RPC API

Bitcoin provides a control interface via a JSON-RPC API on port 8332. We enabled with server=1 in the bitcoin.conf file.

Other locally running applications that need to interact with Bitcoin's JSON-RPC API will use the cookie located at ~/.bitcoin/.cookie.

If you ever want to connect remotely running applications to the JSON-RPC API, you can create a set of credentials with the command below:

Verify the output and append the mentioned line to the bottom of the bitcoin.conf file.

Configure Tor

Bitcoin Core and other applications you install will heavily rely on Tor to connect with peers and ensure our wallets remain accessible. Proper configuration is critical.

Base Configuration

Edit the configuration file:

Add the following lines:

• SocksPort ⇒ SOCKS proxy, routes traffic through the Tor network

• ControlPort ⇒ Allows other programs to interact with the Tor daemon

• CookieAuthentication ⇒ Requires local cookie authentication to access the control port (/run/tor/control.authcookie)

• CookieAuthFileGroupReadable ⇒ Only users in the debian-tor group can authenticate with the cookie

Hidden Onion Service for the JSON-RPC API

Configure systemd service

Bitcoin Core's main program is bitcoind (short for Bitcoin Daemon). We will configure it as a systemd service to simplify management:

Add the following:

• In User=, replace your_user with your own user

• Do the same in the path of PIDFile=

• Verify the path of ExecStart= by running the command which bitcoind

Finally, reload systemd:

What are Bitaxe miners

The official website explains it perfectly ⇒ https://bitaxe.org/

Bitaxe is a Bitcoin miner based on an open-source design and a modern mining ASIC, offering efficiency and customization for users.

The open-source nature allows users to inspect, modify, and enhance the hardware and software to optimize performance based on specific needs or mining environments. Bitaxe is ideal for miners looking for greater control over their operations while contributing to the decentralization of the Bitcoin network.

Initiatives like this help the fight against mining centralization. You can make a donation here.

Bitaxe models

There are several Bitaxe models:

Some of those models are still under development and receiving revisions. You can find more details on Bitaxe's official website.

Where to buy Bitaxe miners

You can find a list of vendors here.

You are also free to purchase all the parts and assemble your miner yourself.

Setting up your Bitaxe miner

Once you've received or assembled your Bitaxe, you can set it up and start mining.

Step 1 - Find your model version

Bitaxe is under active development, with new features and bug fixes frequently released. In addition to your model, you must also note your version/revision number to ensure you flash the correct firmware in the next steps.

In my case, my model is a Bitaxe Supra. My version/revision number is 401. It can be found on the Bitaxe's motheboard:

Step 2 - Download the firmware

Go to this page and download the latest stable firmware for your model and version. In my case:

esp-miner-factory-401-v2.5.0.bin

This file contains:

• The bitaxe firmware

• The web UI (to interact with and configure your Bitaxe)

• A default configuration

Step 3 - Connect to your PC

Plug your Bitaxe into power, then connect it to your PC using a USB-A to USB-C cable.

To identify your Bitaxe's device file, run the following command in your terminal:

sudo dmesg | grep tty

You should see an output similar to this:

[66383.261520] cdc_acm 3-3.2:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device

In my case, this indicates that the miner's device file is /dev/ttyACM0

Step 4 - Flash the firmware

Install bitaxetool

Create a working directory for the flashing process:

mkdir flashing_bitaxe && mv ./esp-miner-factory-401-v2.5.0.bin flashing_bitaxe/ && cd flashing_bitaxe

Next we install the flashing software bitaxetool in a python virtual environment:

python3 -m venv venv

source venv/bin/activate

pip install --upgrade bitaxetool

Create config file

We must also create a config file. You can find templates with default values for each model here.

Here is the template for the Supra 401, also shown below:

key,type,encoding,value
main,namespace,,
hostname,data,string,my-super-bitaxe
wifissid,data,string,wifi-name
wifipass,data,string,wifi-password
stratumurl,data,string,public-pool.io
stratumport,data,u16,21496
stratumuser,data,string,replace-this-with-your-btc-address.my_super_bitaxe.my-super-bitaxe
stratumpass,data,string,password1234
fbstratumurl,data,string,solo.ckpool.org
fbstratumport,data,u16,3333
fbstratumuser,data,string,replace-this-with-your-btc-address.my_super_bitaxe.my-super-bitaxe
fbstratumpass,data,string,password1234
asicfrequency,data,u16,490
asicvoltage,data,u16,1166
asicmodel,data,string,BM1368
devicemodel,data,string,supra
boardversion,data,string,401
rotation,data,u16,0
autofanspeed,data,u16,1
fanspeed,data,u16,100
selftest,data,u16,1
overheat_mode,data,u16,0

Let's look into some of the parameters.

First we got the network config for the Bitaxe to connect automatically to your wifi:

• hostname : It will identify the bitaxe on your local network instead of having to remember its IP

• wifissid : Your Wi-Fi name

• wifipass : Your Wi-Fi password

Then we got the hardware config:

• devicemodel: Model name

• boardversion: Revision number

• asicmodel: The ASIC chip model used by the miner (as detailed here)

• asicfrequency: ASIC cycles per second, expressed in MHz

• asicvoltage: ASIC voltage, expressed in mV

Then we got the pools config. This is for the main pool (here we're using public-pool.io):

• stratumurl

• stratumport

• stratumuser

• stratumpass

And this is for the fallback pool in case the main fails (here we're using ckpool):

• fbstratumurl

• fbstratumport

• fbstratumuser

• fbstratumpass

Flash the firmware

Save the config file in the same working directory. We're now ready to flash with this command:

sudo venv/bin/bitaxetool --port /dev/ttyACM0 --firmware ./esp-miner-factory-401-v2.5.0.bin --config ./config.csv

Once its done, unplug the miner from your PC and from power.

Step 5 - Access the web UI

Once your miner is up and running, you can manage it via its web UI at http://your-miner-IP.

You can also monitor your miners and hashrate on Public Pool by entering the BTC address used in the stratumuser.

Update your Bitaxe

When a new firmware version is released, you can flash it the same way as before.

Alternatively, you can manually update the esp-miner.bin (the firmware) and the ww-bin (the frontend) from the Bitaxe web UI. Just go to Settings and scroll to the very bottom.

Troubleshooting

This link is a good base ⇒ https://d-central.tech/troubleshooting/bitaxe-troubleshooting-guide/

On my 401s I constantly have issues with the display screens not working so I've stopped using them.