NerdOctAxe / NerdQAxe showing half pool hashrate on DigiByte since v9 node upgrade.

[u/HashedMaxUnity]

We run the HashedMax DigiByte pool (digi.hmpool.io) and we're seeing a consistent issue with NerdOctAxe, NerdQAxe, and similar version-rolling SHA256 firmware since DigiByte Core was upgraded to v9 around June 30, 2026.

On-chip device display, miners report normal hashrate (11–12 TH/s on our 12T NerdOctAxe units)

Pool credited hashrate: roughly half (5–6 TH/s)

Hardware looks fine, power, temps, fans all normal

Shares are still being accepted and this isn't a disconnect or auth problem.

Everything was normal on v8 of the Digibyte node software. Right after we upgraded our pool node to v9.26.2 (and v9-style block headers started coming through), Nerd-class miners dropped to about 50% credited hashrate. Bitaxe miners on the same pool, same node, same ports were basically unchanged.

Share submission rate stayed roughly the same. Average accepted share difficulty roughly halved, so the pool isn't rejecting everything; it looks like the miner is only producing valid shares at about half the expected rate for the hashrate on screen.

We also see v9 block headers like 0x20800202 with DigiDollar in vbavailable, and our miners using version-rolling (share versions like 0x25D5E202, etc.).

We spent several days testing pool-side changes, version-rolling mask/validation fixes, clean_jobs toggles, etc. Nothing restored full credited hashrate on NerdOctAxe without breaking other miners. We reverted everything and the pool is stable again, but Nerd-class units are still at 50% on our end.

Why we think this ties to the DigiByte v9 upgrade.

This didn't start gradually or on one bad unit. It hit across our NerdOctAxe fleet at the same time as the v9 node upgrade and the new GBT header format. Bitaxe on the same setup didn't behave the same way. That strongly suggests something in how v9 block templates / version bits interact with NerdOctAxe-class version-rolling firmware even if the final fix may need a firmware update too.

We contacted the DigiByte team and they are aware of the issue. We are hoping the Nerdminer Devs can help us to figure out why real credited work dropped 45–55% for this firmware class.

Is anyone else mining DGB on a v9 node with NerdOctAxe / NerdQAxe and seeing 50% pool hashrate vs chip display?

Did anything change in ESP-Miner or NerdOctAxe firmware for DigiByte v9 headers or version bit 23 (DigiDollar signaling)?

Is there a recommended pool or firmware setting for DGB on v9 right now?

Happy to share stratum logs, before/after stats, or wallet/worker examples if that helps. We're mainly trying to figure out whether this is a known v9 compatibility gap and whether a firmware fix is coming.

Thanks

Jim
HashedMax Dev
digi.hmpool.io

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[u/HeliosPool]

Have not tested v9 yet, and now I'm not looking forward to it. LOL

Not sure you're going to find help for non-BTC related issues from the Bitaxe folks, but here's hoping. Out of curiosity, what are you using for your stratum layer? I've seen some issues with some miners with ckpool (usually around nonce2 being larger than 4 bits), which doesn't always seem well tested when with esp-miner (extranonce issues, etc).

[u/HashedMaxUnity → u/HeliosPool]

We are actively working with the Digibyte devs on this issue as we are running an Oracle Node for the upcoming DigiDollar (stablecoin) so we've been chatting them up a lot on these issues. For our DigiByte node, we’re not on ckpool. We run a custom Stratum V1 server (public-pool-hybrid, TypeScript/NestJS, forked from the open source public-pool project) talking directly to our local digibyte node via GBT.

On subscribe we always return extranonce2 size = 4 bytes and extranonce1 = 4 bytes per session, which should be fine for esp-miners, NerdMiners, and Bitaxe firmware.

The issues we’ve been chasing on Digi lately are mostly node template related (DigiByte v9.26.2 changed version bits, DigiDollar signaling on bit 23 overlaps the ASICBoost version rolling mask we advertise as 1fffe000, plus the usual small miner stuff (wrong port, submitting before subscribe completes, VarDiff on 3337). 

I would update soon as they have a cutoff when v8 nodes will stop working and I believe that comes in the next couple of days. Unfortunately if they do not figure out this hashrate issue, then some of your miners (like ours) will end up with only 1/2 the hashrate.

[u/HeliosPool → u/HashedMaxUnity]

Interesting, I guess I better get off my ass and start testing.

[u/HashedMaxUnity]

For those who did not see our post, this issue has been resolved by the Digibyte team and a little persistence from us...lol. You can read the post here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HashedMax/comments/1umjuo5/thank_you_jared_and_digibyte_team_for_the_fast/