Bitcoin Miner and Bitcoin Node Web Interfaces

Published July 10, 2025

  • YouTube Video Transcript

    00:00 All right, everyone. So, this is a
    00:02 follow-up video to the one I just did. I
    00:03 wanted to show you what the web
    00:05 interfaces of a Bitcoin miner and a
    00:08 Bitcoin node look like. So, this is the
    00:11 web interface for the Bitcoin miner,
    00:13 which is complicated. If it doesn’t look
    00:15 complicated, it’s complicated. Um, by
    00:18 most standards, it’ be simple, but
    00:19 you’re going to see how simple it is.
    00:21 Uh, you know, compared to uh this is
    00:23 much more complicated than a Bitcoin
    00:24 node. So, my Bitcoin miner is not
    00:27 working right now for reasons I have not
    00:28 been able to figure out. So, it’s mining
    00:31 at zero uh hashes per second, which
    00:33 means it’s not working. Um, but you can
    00:35 see there’s just a variety of
    00:37 complicated things around power and heat
    00:40 and what mining pool I’m connected to
    00:43 and all that sort of stuff. Uh, if you
    00:45 have multiple miners, you can do a
    00:47 little swarm here and it’ll keep track
    00:49 of all the different Bitcoin miners that
    00:51 you’ve got. the network just uh shows
    00:53 the network that it’s connected to. And
    00:55 then the settings, which look
    00:57 complicated uh which is part of why I
    00:59 hadn’t been able to get this uh going.
    01:01 So this is what the settings look like.
    01:03 There’s mining pools, stratum ports, uh
    01:06 Bitcoin addresses. It’s just
    01:08 complicated. And I’m showing you this as
    01:10 a contrast to uh how simple a the
    01:14 Bitcoin node interface is. So um anyway,
    01:17 so this is what a Bitcoin miner’s web
    01:19 interface looks like. And mine is not
    01:21 working for some reason, which is why uh
    01:24 if you look at the logs, which may come
    01:25 up in a minute here, uh it will show
    01:28 that I don’t know what the problem is,
    01:30 but I am somehow having an I2C
    01:33 transmission unexpected knack detected
    01:36 error on the I2C transaction failed. Who
    01:39 the heck knows what I what that means? I
    01:41 don’t know. I’ll figure it out. But the
    01:43 reason I’m showing you all this is to
    01:45 say Bitcoin miners are more complicated
    01:47 than Bitcoin nodes. Uh they’re just more
    01:49 complicated. There’s way more to it.
    01:51 Okay, so let’s leave the complexity
    01:53 behind and look at my beautiful Umbreal
    01:57 Bitcoin node. Ah, there it is. How
    02:01 beautiful. Looks like the app store. In
    02:03 fact, when you f first boot it up, uh,
    02:06 also this Bitcoin miner over here, you
    02:08 got to get to it with an IP address.
    02:10 This 19216850.14,
    02:13 it’s a bunch of complexity that people
    02:15 don’t want to deal with. Umbrell’s
    02:16 simple. You plug in this little square
    02:18 box and then you type umbrell.local.
    02:21 Now, if you wanted to get to their
    02:22 website, you’d type in umbrell.com.
    02:25 But you don’t want to go to their
    02:26 website. You want to go to the local
    02:28 Umbreal little bitcoin uh node uh
    02:31 device. And so, you just type in
    02:33 umbrell.local. And it is super simple.
    02:35 You just set up a password and then it
    02:38 looks like the whole thing looks like
    02:39 the app store. And it literally looks
    02:41 like the app store. Like it is just so
    02:43 simple. you can click and it brings up
    02:45 apps and you can look through the
    02:47 different apps and you know see if
    02:48 there’s an app you want and it’s just
    02:50 super simple. Uh anyway, so this is what
    02:53 the app store looks like and again you
    02:55 can uh you know the apps work exactly
    02:57 like you would expect an app in an app
    02:59 store to work. We’re not going to do
    03:00 that. We’re uh we’re just going to look
    03:02 at the Bitcoin node. Now there’s other
    03:03 cool stuff before we look at the Bitcoin
    03:05 node. You know this bit feed thing will
    03:07 show you the following Well, there you
    03:10 go. It’ll show you the following Bitcoin
    03:11 blocks. So these are all the
    03:13 transactions that are coming into the
    03:15 Bitcoin mempool which again is a bunch
    03:17 of complexity you don’t need to deal
    03:18 with. Uh but it’s just there’s cool
    03:20 stuff you can do like this. You can also
    03:22 go look at your own copy of the mempool
    03:25 which again is even more complexity that
    03:28 you don’t need to deal with. But this is
    03:30 your own local copy that shows you
    03:31 exactly how that works. Uh but the
    03:34 beautiful part is again when you start
    03:36 it’s just like a beautiful screen with
    03:38 no icons and they’re like welcome to
    03:41 Umbrell. You can run a Bitcoin node. You
    03:43 can also run a bunch of other random
    03:44 stuff but it’s just beautiful and it’s
    03:47 just simple and it’s just
    03:48 straightforward and it’s gorgeous and
    03:51 you click on the Bitcoin node and it
    03:54 launches your very own copy of the
    03:55 Bitcoin node. uh it takes it a second to
    03:57 load and then is this is what took uh
    04:00 between 21 and 24 hours to load. So it
    04:04 says I’m 100% synchronized. That means
    04:06 my Bitcoin node is synchronized with the
    04:08 entire Bitcoin blockchain. It shows that
    04:11 it’s uh most recent block is block uh 88
    04:16 874,786
    04:20 four minutes ago. The block block before
    04:21 that was seven minutes. The block before
    04:23 that eight minutes. the block before
    04:24 that 19 minutes I am connected to uh 11
    04:29 peers that is three on clear net I don’t
    04:32 even know what that is seven on tour and
    04:34 one on I2P and then my memp pool which
    04:38 I’ve explained what that is in a video
    04:39 is 40 megabytes the hash rate is about
    04:42 900 xahashes for the entire Bitcoin
    04:44 network and the blockchain size which is
    04:46 stored entirely on this little Bitcoin
    04:49 node that I talked about in the previous
    04:50 video is 700 gigabytes and the hard
    04:54 drive on this little thing is uh two
    04:55 terabytes. So, I’ll be able to store the
    04:57 Bitcoin network for probably the rest of
    04:59 my life. Uh but anyway, it’s super
    05:01 clean. It’s super simple. So, my
    05:03 experience with messing around with
    05:05 these is the Bitcoin miner is
    05:08 complicated. It is techy and it is not
    05:10 yet working for me. Um my experience
    05:13 with running my own Bitcoin node is that
    05:16 it’s gorgeous. It’s elegant. It’s
    05:18 straightforward. It’s super simple. And
    05:20 I’m super impress impressed with Umbrell
    05:23 who will sell you one of these things
    05:25 for $400. And it actually does a lot
    05:27 more than just being a Bitcoin node. You
    05:29 can run like a gazillion different apps
    05:31 on it and they’re all super elegant.
    05:33 They’re all super straightforward and it
    05:34 works like the app store. So uh that is
    05:37 the gist of what the uh Bitcoin uh
    05:40 Bitcoin node interface looks like. Super
    05:43 clean, super simple, super
    05:44 straightforward. If you get something
    05:45 like Umbreel or Start 9, S T A R T, the
    05:49 number nine. Um, I’m using Umbreal
    05:51 because it looked easier to use. And at
    05:54 44 years old, I’m all about ease of use.
    05:56 I used to be a techie, but I just don’t
    05:58 like things being more techy than they
    05:60 have to be because why bother? So, I got
    06:03 an Umbreal because it was like
    06:05 brainlessly easy to use. And um, and I
    06:08 have not gotten this little Bitcoin
    06:10 miner, this Bitax Bitcoin miner. I have
    06:12 not gotten that working yet. But uh
    06:13 anyway, but I run my own Bitcoin node,
    06:15 which means I could run the entire
    06:17 Bitcoin network at my house if I had to.
    06:20 And you don’t need either of these. You
    06:22 don’t need a Bitcoin node. You don’t
    06:23 need a Bitcoin miner because there are
    06:25 tens of thousands of people running
    06:27 Bitcoin nodes and they’re all going to
    06:29 work fine with or without you. Um
    06:31 although if you want to run one,
    06:32 there’s, you know, not a downside. More
    06:34 is better. But there’s no benefit to the
    06:36 average person unless you’re techy and
    06:38 you want to like process Bitcoin
    06:40 transactions on your own node. So nobody
    06:43 else on the network, you know, even
    06:44 knows, you know, that it’s you or
    06:46 something like that. But the only people
    06:47 I know that run Bitcoin nodes are like
    06:49 super techy people. So there is no
    06:51 reason for the average person to run a
    06:53 Bitcoin node. Uh the average sort of
    06:55 person that’s watching my Facebook live
    06:57 videos, there’s no reason to run a
    06:59 Bitcoin node. Uh but it is super simple.
    07:01 It is super straightforward. It is super
    07:03 clean. And Umbrell does really an
    07:05 excellent job and just makes it super
    07:07 super simple. Unlike over here this
    07:10 BitAx Bitcoin miner which is complicated
    07:13 by comparison, very complicated by
    07:16 comparison, even though they’ve
    07:17 attempted to make it as elegant and
    07:19 straightforward as they can. Uh you can
    07:21 ignore all the rest of these apps. These
    07:22 are just random things I’m messing with.
    07:24 Uh but the only one I wanted to talk
    07:26 about was this Bitcoin node in the upper
    07:28 lefthand corner. So uh that’s your quick
    07:31 video today of what is a Bitcoin node,
    07:33 what is a Bitcoin miner. You do not need
    07:35 either one of them, but I thought you
    07:37 might be curious that you can run the
    07:38 entire Bitcoin network with just those
    07:40 two little devices. And it’s so cool
    07:43 that you can, even if that’s not
    07:45 something the average person needs to
    07:46 do. So, have a great day everyone. Thank
    07:48 you so much.

**Originally recorded 12/24/24**

Share this content

Disclaimer:

The content provided in this post is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered financial, investment, or trading advice. I am not a licensed financial advisor, and all opinions expressed are my own. Always conduct your own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Investing in Bitcoin or any other assets carries risk, and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose.

Post category:

  • Facebook Live

Subscribe to Joel's Friday Roundup ✉️

Stay current with the latest bitcoin insights with the Friday Roundup newsletter –  Joel’s latest posts from the week, wrapped up in a single email for easy viewing. 

Global Email List Subscription Form

NOTHING for sale. No SPAM ever. Unsubscribe anytime.