Why This Is a Core Grant
Mining firmware controls every aspect of how a mining device operates: pool connections, power management, performance tuning, and more. The entire ecosystem currently runs on closed-source proprietary firmware, giving hardware manufacturers an additional lever of control over miners. Mujina breaks this dependency by providing a community-maintained open-source alternative.
Why It's Necessary
The proprietary firmware ecosystem creates multiple points of centralized control and censorship risk. Closed firmware can be silently updated to enforce pool restrictions, change performance profiles, or phone home with operational data. Mujina eliminates these risks by making the firmware fully auditable, forkable, and community-governed — analogous to what the Linux kernel is for operating systems.
The Stakes Are Different. The Answer Is the Same.
Whether you are running a hundred thousand machines in an industrial data center or a single hashboard heating your home office, closed-source firmware is working against you. The specific problem changes with scale — but the solution is always the same: firmware whose source code you can read, verify, modify, and trust.
Institutional miners: the risk surface you cannot audit
In 2017, Bitmain's stock Antminer firmware was found to contain a hardcoded remote shutdown capability — Antbleed — that pinged an unauthenticated server every 1–11 minutes. If the server returned false, the miner stopped hashing. No announcement. No opt-out. Just a kill switch embedded in firmware running on an estimated 70% of global hashrate. Separately, Bitmain was accused of using covert AsicBoost — a ~10–20% efficiency advantage withheld from customers and competitors. For publicly traded mining companies, closed firmware also creates a direct audit problem: the software controlling your primary revenue-generating process is a black box. You cannot verify to your auditors that hashrate is being directed correctly, that all valid shares are being submitted, or that a silent dev fee isn't being taken. Firmware you can read and build from source is the only technical path to firmware-level assurance.
Mid-size operators: customization without the tax
Closed-source aftermarket firmware typically charges 2–2.8% of hashrate as a dev fee — and most waive it only if you direct your machines to the firmware vendor's own pool. At scale, 2.8% is not a rounding error. It is a mandatory revenue transfer to a vendor who also operates a competing pool. Open-source firmware has no dev fee, no pool lock, and no vendor who can push a silent update that changes the terms. If Mujina doesn't do exactly what your operation needs, you fork it, make the change, and run your own build. That option does not exist with closed firmware.
Home and specialty miners: control over every watt
A hashrate heater running three hashboards does not have the same control requirements as a data center rack. You might want to honor a 1,000W heating request by stepping all three boards down proportionally — or by optimizing one board for maximum heat output and parking the other two. You might want to ramp hashrate up as the room cools and back down as it warms. You might want temperature-targeted fan curves that protect hardware in an unventilated garage. Closed firmware gives you a handful of presets tuned for data center ambient conditions. Open firmware gives you the actual controls: per-chip power targeting, watt-level budgets, temperature thresholds, and the ability to write custom logic for whatever system you are building — whether that is a pool heater, a solar monetization rig, or a desktop miner.
The guarantee that makes everything else possible
The specific benefits above — no backdoors, no dev fee, full customization — all depend on one thing: the ability to read and verify the source code. With closed firmware, you cannot confirm it is not redirecting shares to a shadow pool, not phoning home with your operational data, not running a hidden efficiency mode that benefits the manufacturer. With Mujina, the source code is public, the build is reproducible, and every change is visible in the commit history. Trust is not granted to a vendor. It is earned by the code.
Technical Details
Mujina is written in Rust on a Linux-based embedded OS, licensed under GPLv3. It supports Stratum V1 (with DATUM compatibility) and Stratum V2, and is designed to run on Ember One and Libre Board natively — while also providing best-effort compatibility with existing commercial hardware including Antminer, Whatsminer, and Avalon. Management interfaces include a web dashboard, HTTP REST API, CLI, and structured config files. The long-term vision is for Mujina to evolve into a complete, flashable Linux-based OS for Bitcoin mining hardware.
Key Specifications
Features & Compatibility
Protocol Support
- →Stratum V1
- →Stratum V2
- →DATUM compatibility
- →Multiple pool configs with failover
Hardware Compatibility
- →Ember One hash board (native)
- →Libre Board (native)
- →Antminer drivers
- →Whatsminer drivers
- →Avalon drivers
Management Interfaces
- →Web dashboard
- →HTTP REST API
- →Command-line interface (CLI)
- →Structured text file configuration
- →Continuous integration framework
About the Mujina Firmware category
Open-source Bitcoin mining firmware. No dev fees, no closed parameters. Run any hashboard, any control board. Read every line, modify without permission. Own your firmware. Built in Rust. GPL licensed. Mujina is an ope…
New user-facing website, PRs welcome
Mujina Dev Call #7 20260803
Mujina dev call #6 20260720
docs(code-style): order module items top down
Ryan Kuester · 1d ago
feat(tracing): add MUJINA_LOG filter variable
Ryan Kuester · 12d ago
docs(contributing): reflect agreed contribution flow and channels
Jayr Motta · 1mo ago
ci: fold the per-commit walk into just ci
Ryan Kuester · 22d ago
docs(contributing): cover per-commit CI checks
Ryan Kuester · 22d ago
ci: check each PR commit individually
Ryan Kuester · 22d ago
Ryan Kuester
@ryankuester
Lead Engineer
Firmware engineer with decades of Linux and embedded systems experience. Ryan brings deep low-level expertise to Mujina, building the open-source firmware foundation that the entire Bitcoin mining stack runs on.
Econoalchemist
@econoalchemist
Project Manager
Bitcoin educator, technical writer, and co-host of the POD256 podcast. Co-founder of the 256 Foundation and project manager across all four pillar grants.