The software used in bitcoin mining is getting its first big makeover in more than a decade — here’s what’s changing
Employees work on bitcoin mining computers at Bitminer Factory in Florence, Italy.
Alessandro Bianchi | Reuters
Software used in bitcoin mining just got its first upgrade since late 2012, and a coalition of companies including payments giant Block (formerly Square) is trying to help push the open-source protocol forward to become an industry standard.
The move could help open bitcoin mining to more participants by supporting lower-quality internet connections, as well as improving security so miners get properly compensated for their work.
Bitcoin operates on a proof-of-work mining model, meaning that miners around the world run high-powered computers to create new bitcoin and validate transactions. Mining requires professional-grade equipment, some technical know-how, a lot of electricity and a special kind of software.
Rather than directly accessing the bitcoin protocol, the vast majority of miners today work through an intermediary protocol called Stratum, which facilitates communication between the bitcoin network, miners, and the mining pools that combine the hashing power of thousands of miners all over the world.
Miners use Stratum to submit their work and to collect a reward if they successfully complete a new block of transactions.
On Tuesday, a coalition of bitcoin developers is releasing version 2 of Stratum under an open-source license for the mining industry to evaluate and test.
It will take some work to convince the mining industry to adopt the new protocol, so Spiral — a subsidiary of Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block (formerly Square) — is teaming up with bitcoin mining company Braiins to launch a group to test and fine-tune the open-source software before they push mass adoption.
What the upgrade does
Steve Lee, the lead at Spiral, tells CNBC there are several significant benefits to the upgrade, including cutting down on the use of data.
Currently, it is common for each mining rig in a large farm to directly connect to a pool. This setup wastes a lot of energy. Lee says that Stratum V2 supports a proxy that aggregates all the connections and only establishes one connection with the pool.
The process of sending that data is also changing to a more efficient method.
“All told, much less data needs to be transmitted between miners and pools, and this could help miners in remote regions of the world with poor internet,” noted Lee.
The upgrade is designed to improve security, as well. Today, it is possible to steal hash rate from a miner, which can lead to some miners losing money. Hash rate is a term for the collective computing power of the bitcoin network. To resolve this, Lee says Stratum V2 introduces a standard security mechanism with authentication and encryption between miners and pools.
The version being released Tuesday is for initial testing, and in early November, a more robust version will come out that supports additional functionality, including job negotiation — a “feature that represents a historic shift in the censorship-resistant mechanics of bitcoin mining by replacing a pool’s responsibility of assigning work to miners with the ability for miners to select their own work,” according to a joint statement released by Spiral and Braiins.
There are orders of magnitude more miners than pools, so if miners select transactions it is far more decentralized than just a handful of pools, Lee explained.
“Working for industrywide adoption of the upgraded Stratum protocol is one of the most important developments in improving the decentralization and censorship resistance of bitcoin’s architecture,” Lee said.
As for timing, the pilot and integration testing will happen this fall, and next year, the upgraded protocol will likely see greater adoption once miners and pools are confident it is working well.
“I’d anticipate a gradual increase in hash rate in 2023,” Lee told CNBC. “Reaching 10% hash rate by the end of 2023 would be a great success,” continued Lee.
Lee added that it will likely take several years to see the latest version of Stratum replace the original.
“Miners know the benefits of upgrading to Stratum V2 very well, but pushing the entire mining industry over some of the remaining development and adoption hurdles is a big task,” said Jan Capek, co-founder of Braiins.
“Universal standards for running and building Stratum V2 and the efforts of this working group to push the industry forward will provide the momentum bitcoin needs to finally upgrade from a version of its mining protocol that was built a decade ago,” continued Capek.
Similar to the Lightning Network, which is a technology built on top of bitcoin’s base layer to make payments more efficient, there will be different implementations of Stratum V2. However, the open-source version released Tuesday will make it easier to collectively test out the technology. It will also ensure that the various projects can interact with one another.
Block jumping into mining
Tuesday’s announcement is part of Block’s larger push into the bitcoin mining industry.
On the sidelines of the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami in April, digital assets infrastructure company Blockstream and Block announced that they were breaking ground on a solar- and battery-powered bitcoin mine in Texas that uses solar and storage technology from Tesla.
Tesla’s 3.8 megawatt solar PV array and 12 megawatt-hour Megapack will power the facility.
Block is also independently working on a project to make bitcoin mining more distributed and efficient.
The idea of making the mining process more accessible has to do with more than just creating new bitcoin, according to Block’s general manager for hardware, Thomas Templeton. Instead, he says the company sees it as a long-term need for a future that is fully decentralized and permissionless.
“Mining needs to be more distributed,” Dorsey wrote in a tweet in October, when he first floated the idea. “The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the bitcoin network becomes.”
Toward that end, the company is solving one major barrier to entry: Mining rigs are hard to find, expensive and delivery can be unpredictable. Block says it is open to making a new ASIC, which is the specialized gear used to mine for bitcoin.
The project is being incubated within Block’s hardware team, which is beginning to build out a core engineering team of system, ASIC and software designers led by Afshin Rezayee.
BMW Motorrad’s futuristic electric scooter just got its first real refresh since beginning production in 2021. The BMW CE 04, already one of the most capable and stylish electric maxi-scooters on the market, now gets a set of upgraded trim options, new aesthetic touches, and a more robust list of features that aim to make this urban commuter even more appealing to riders looking for serious electric performance on two wheels.
The BMW CE 04 has always stood out for its sci-fi styling and high-performance drivetrain. It’s built on a mid-mounted liquid-cooled motor that puts out 31 kW (42 hp) and 62 Nm of torque. That’s enough to rocket the scooter from 0 to 50 km/h (31 mph) in just 2.6 seconds – quite fast for anything with a step-through frame.
The top speed is electronically limited to 120 km/h (75 mph), making it perfectly capable for city riding and fast enough to hold its own on highway stretches. Range is rated at 130 km (81 miles) on the WMTC cycle, thanks to the 8.9 kWh battery pack tucked low in the frame.
But while the core performance hasn’t changed, BMW’s 2025 update focuses on refining the package and giving riders more options to tailor the scooter to their taste. The new CE 04 is available in three trims: Basic, Avantgarde, and Exclusive.
The Basic trim keeps things clean and classic with a Lightwhite paint scheme and a clear windshield. It’s subtle, sleek, and very much in line with the CE 04’s clean-lined aesthetic. The Avantgarde model adds a splash of color with a Gravity Blue main body and bright São Paulo Yellow accents, along with a dark windshield and a laser-engraved rim. The top-shelf Exclusive trim is where things get fancy, with a premium Spacesilver metallic paint job, upgraded wind protection, heated grips, a luxury embroidered seat, and its own unique engraved rim treatment.
There are also a few new tech upgrades baked into the options list. Riders can now spec a 6.9 kW quick charger that reduces the 0–80% charge time to just 45 minutes (down from nearly 4 hours with the standard 2.3 kW onboard charger). Tire pressure monitoring, a center stand, and BMW’s “Headlight Pro” adaptive lighting system are also available as add-ons, along with an emergency eCall system and Dynamic Traction Control.
BMW has kept the core riding components in place: a steel-tube chassis, 15-inch wheels, Bosch ABS (with optional ABS Pro), and the impressive 10.25” TFT display with integrated navigation and smartphone connectivity. The under-seat storage still swallows a full-face helmet, and the long, low frame design means the scooter looks like something out of Blade Runner but rides like a luxury commuter.
With these updates, BMW seems to be further cementing the CE 04’s role at the high end of the electric scooter market. It’s not cheap, starting around €12,000 in Europe and around US $12,500 in the US, with prices going up from there depending on configuration. However, the maxi-scooter delivers real motorcycle-grade performance in a package that’s easier to live with for daily riders.
Electrek’s Take
I believe that the CE 04’s biggest strength has always been that it’s not trying to be a toy or a gimmick. It’s a real vehicle. Sure, it’s futuristic and funky looking, but it delivers on its promises. And in a market that’s still surprisingly sparse when it comes to premium electric scooters, BMW has had the lane mostly to itself. That may not last forever, though. LiveWire, Harley-Davidson’s electric spin-off brand, has teased plans for a maxi-scooter-style urban electric vehicle in the coming years, but as of now, it remains something of an undefined future plan.
Meanwhile, BMW is delivering not just a concept bike but a mature, well-equipped, and ready-to-ride electric scooter that keeps improving. For riders who want something faster and more capable than a Class 3 e-bike but aren’t ready to jump to a full-size electric motorcycle, the CE 04 hits a sweet spot. It delivers the performance and capability of a commuter e-motorcycle, yet with the approachability of a scooter. And with these new trims and upgrades, it’s doing it with even more style.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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