DCENT_OS — Open-Source Bitcoin Mining Firmware for Antminer & Bitaxe-Class Miners

Turn an industrial Antminer or a desktop Bitaxe into a quiet, efficient, fully-owned Bitcoin mining space heater — no cloud account, no telemetry, no license server, no mandatory dev fee.

Rust mining daemon · Buildroot Linux & ESP32-S3 · local web dashboard · AI-native (built-in MCP server) · GPL-3.0

D-Central gives this away under GPL-3.0. If it helps you, keep it alive — in Bitcoin or by card. Not a licence; commercial use is always free.

Quick start · Screenshots · Supported hardware · Test it yourself · Security · Contributing

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Built by the Mining Hackers at D-Central Technologies — Canada's leading Bitcoin mining technology company since 2016, based in Laval, Québec. 2,500+ miners repaired, 400+ products shipped. This is the firmware we run ourselves, released so every operator can own, repair, and understand their own hardware.

DCENT_OS is home-mining firmware for two hardware classes: selected industrial Bitmain Antminers (S9 → S21 era, Zynq / Amlogic / BeagleBone control boards) and ESP32-S3 Bitaxe-class desk miners (BM1397 / BM1366 / BM1368 / BM1370). It replaces stock firmware with a modern Rust mining daemon, a local-first three-mode dashboard, a per-chip autotuner, Stratum V1 + V2, and a built-in MCP server so a local AI agent can monitor — and, with owner authentication, control — the miner.

Decentralize every layer. Heat your home. Stack sats.

See it running

Space Heater mode — a thermostat, not a spreadsheet. Room temperature, BTU/h output, and an honest "earning sats while heating" ledger. Quiet-first: DCENT_OS cuts hash power before it ever raises fan noise.

Mining mode — live hashrate, silicon telemetry down to individual chips, current-block hero, share quality, and pool state. Every number is evidence-gated: connected ≠ mining, scheduled ≠ flashed, upload ≠ mined.

The Companion — one of the first miner firmwares with an AI-native control surface. Point it at a local LLM (LM Studio / Ollama — your model, your machine, no cloud), ask "my miner is noisy, what can we do?", and it proposes a guarded action you explicitly approve:

The autotuner — tune by what you actually care about: power, hashrate, fan noise, heat output, or efficiency (J/TH), with an honest before → after prediction and hard safety clamps.

One firmware family, many miners

DCENT_OS/
└── firmware/
    ├── antminer/     → industrial Antminers (S9 → S21): Rust dcentrald daemon + Buildroot Linux + dashboard + docs/
    ├── esp/          → ESP32-S3 Bitaxe-class miners (BM1397/1366/1368/1370): original Rust firmware + MCP
    ├── avalon/       → Avalon (Canaan) support — in development (see DCENT_OS_AvalonMiner/README.md)
    └── whatsminer/   → WhatsMiner (MicroBT) support — in development (see DCENT_OS_WhatsMiner/README.md)

Platform	Where	Status
Antminer S9 / S17 / S19 / S19 Pro / S19j Pro / S21	DCENT_OS_Antminer/	Supported — mining achieved on multiple models (accepted pool shares on our bench); see the honest per-model matrix in DCENT_OS_Antminer/docs/PLATFORMS.md (mining achieved vs bring-up vs blocked, and which proofs are still untested on the latest binaries).
Bitaxe-class Max / Ultra / Supra / Gamma / Hex Ultra / Hex Supra (ESP32-S3)	DCENT_OS_ESP/	Supported — Gamma live-verified; others driver- and host-tested. Built-in MCP (AI-control) server.
Avalon (Canaan)	DCENT_OS_AvalonMiner/	In development — architecture scaffolded; no mining claim yet.
WhatsMiner (MicroBT)	DCENT_OS_WhatsMiner/	In development — reverse engineering + bring-up underway; no mining claim yet.

We publish an honest readiness taxonomy: mining achieved means accepted pool shares on real hardware on our bench — nothing weaker earns the label, and where a proof hasn't been re-run on the latest binaries the matrix says so instead of silently re-claiming it. Published live-capture evidence has operator IP/MAC addresses rewritten to RFC 5737 documentation values as a privacy measure; the captures come from real bench hardware.

Quick start

Pick your platform and follow its guide:

• Antminer: DCENT_OS_Antminer/README.md → flash a prebuilt signed release with DCENT_Toolbox, or build the signed sysupgrade in Docker (a full flashable image needs non-redistributable SoC boot components, which the Toolbox route sources from your own unit — see DCENT_OS_Antminer/DEVELOPMENT.md).
• Bitaxe-class (ESP32): DCENT_OS_ESP/README.md → build with the esp-rs toolchain and flash over USB or OTA.
• Just want to try it? TESTING.md walks you from zero-hardware (run the test suite, drive the full dashboard with mock telemetry) through a reversible /tmp trial on a real Antminer to a persistent install — with an undo path at every tier.

What makes DCENT_OS different

• No mandatory dev fee. A transparent, fully-disableable voluntary donation (zero is valid), always visible on the dashboard when active — versus the industry's forced 1.5–2.8%.
• Quiet by default. Low-PWM boot, PID thermal control, and a hard policy that cuts hash power before raising fan noise — firmware designed for the room you live in, not a warehouse.
• Original open code. GPL-3.0, no forked proprietary code. Every ASIC constant is documented with its source (live probe, datasheet, or our own reverse engineering), and open-source lineage (ESP-Miner, cgminer, BraiinsOS components) is attributed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
• Local-first. Web dashboard, REST + WebSocket APIs, CGMiner-compatible API (port 4028, pyasic/Home-Assistant friendly), and MCP — all on your LAN. No cloud, no account, no phone-home.
• AI-native. Built-in MCP (Model Context Protocol) server: read-only monitoring for any agent, authenticated owner sessions for control. The dashboard Companion speaks to your own local LLM.
• Real autotuning. Closed-loop per-chip frequency/voltage search with measured feedback, PVT clamps, ramp limits, and rollback — opt-in, efficiency-first.
• Stratum V1 + V2. Multi-pool failover with anti-flap failback on V1; a native Stratum V2 stack (Noise encryption, certificate auth, job declaration) under an explicit readiness gate.
• Safety-first engineering. EEPROM write-protection at the HAL, fail-closed signed OTA with mandatory backup and dry-run-first, management-only first boot (a fresh flash never surprise-starts a loud miner), and thermal supervision with graded response.
• Honest by design. The UI and docs keep every claim evidence-gated — upload ≠ mined, scheduled ≠ flashed, connected ≠ mining.

Test it yourself

You can verify almost everything in this repo without owning a miner — and everything with one. Start with TESTING.md:

1. Tier 0 (no hardware): cargo test the daemon workspace; run the dashboard against the bundled mock-telemetry server; cross-compile the real ARM binary.
2. Tier 1 (a $100-class Bitaxe): flash over USB, fully reversible.
3. Tier 2 (an Antminer, zero persistent writes): run dcentrald from /tmp over SSH — a reboot restores the incumbent firmware untouched.
4. Tier 3 (persistent): signed packages through DCENT_Toolbox with backup-first, dry-run-first safety gates.

Community test reports — success or failure — are how bring-up models get promoted. Use the platform-bring-up issue template.

The D-Central open-source Bitcoin mining ecosystem

All under one roof at github.com/DCentralTech — decentralize every layer: mining, tools, hardware, communication.

• DCENT_OS — this repo: open-source mining firmware for industrial Antminers and ESP32 Bitaxe-class miners (Avalon + WhatsMiner scaffolded).
• DCENT_Toolbox — the open-source bench tool: scan, unlock, audit, flash, and prove — from your own machine.
• DCENT_axe — open-hardware Bitaxe-class boards (Solo / Quad / Hex) with integrated LoRa mesh.
• DCENT_Raven — LoRa-mesh accessory for any Bitaxe.

Support / Fund D-Central

DCENT_OS and the whole ecosystem are free and open under GPL-3.0 — no license server, no mandatory dev fee. If it helps you, help keep the lights on: d-central.tech/fund (Bitcoin ⚡ or card). Funding pays for the reverse engineering, firmware, and open-hardware work that makes the sovereign mining stack possible. Commercial use is always free — this is a thank-you, not a toll.

License, security & governance

GPL-3.0 — the LICENSE file is the verbatim license text; copyright and third-party attribution live in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. Vulnerabilities: see SECURITY.md (coordinated disclosure, safe harbor). Contributions welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md, GOVERNANCE.md, and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. DCENT_OS is steered by D-Central Technologies and built in the open for the whole mining community.