Sovereign Stack V1

Anyone who takes Bitcoin seriously eventually asks two questions: whom do I trust about the state of the blockchain – and who is computing on the blocks? The Sovereign Stack V1 answers both with your own hardware: the LiquidBox V5 as a Bitcoin full node running Umbrel OS – Intel N150, 16 GB DDR5-4800, 2 TB NVMe SSD, 2.5G LAN – and a Bitaxe Gamma with a BM1370 ASIC delivering around 1.3 TH/s at roughly 15 W.

The node draws around 10 W in continuous operation and the miner about 15 W – roughly 25 W together, or 18 kWh a month. At €0.28/kWh the complete setup therefore costs about €5 of electricity a month; check it in the mining calculator. The miner is quoted under 15 dB(A) and controlled through the fan curve in AxeOS.

The mining part is small and still real: every hash from the Bitaxe is a ticket in the same draw the large farms take part in. If it lands on your miner, the full 3.125 BTC block reward plus fees go to your own address, confirmed by your own node. Until then the ticket costs about €3 of electricity a month, and your device helps secure the network. None of it is plannable: a lottery with a small stake, as our solo mining guide explains, and a contribution to decentralisation.

• Verify instead of trust: your wallet asks your own node instead of a provider’s server. Every block is checked locally against the consensus rules.
• Your own pool is possible: Umbrel can run a solo pool that you point the Bitaxe at directly.
• Matched to each other: the right power supplies for both devices – 19V/65W and 5V/6A – plus all cables are included. No compatibility research needed.
• Open software: Umbrel OS on the node, AxeOS on the miner. Both are used in a browser and both are openly documented.

The LiquidBox V5 downloads the blockchain once and verifies it block by block along the way. After that it is the source for everything else: for wallets you connect through Umbrel, for Lightning, BTCPay or monitoring apps. The 2 TB NVMe SSD holds blockchain and app data, and the 16 GB of DDR5-4800 lets several apps run at once.

The miner brings the BM1370 ASIC at around 1.3 TH/s and roughly 15 J/TH, a 0.91-inch OLED and AxeOS as its web interface. Pool, worker and Bitcoin address are yours to enter: a public pool, a solo pool or the one on your own node.

Set it up, plug it in, open it in a browser – no monitor and no command line. Only the full blockchain sync keeps running in the background afterwards. The miner side is covered in the Bitaxe setup guide.

For beginners who start both at once: their own node and their own hash rate. For homelab operators with one device next to the router and a second one on a shelf. And for everyone who would rather skip the research into which miner fits which node.

The set is less suitable if you only want to verify and not mine – then the LiquidBox V5 on its own is enough. And if maximum hash rate is the goal, a single Bitaxe is the wrong lever: larger devices are under Bitcoin miners.

Everything necessary is included: node, miner, both power supplies, cables and the guide. From you come a free LAN port, two sockets, a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network for the miner and your own Bitcoin address.

For continuous operation, some air around both devices and stable power make sense. The miner is best placed free-standing so the fan can spin slowly.

The set is a beginning: more hash rate on the same node, or quieter operation of the miner you already have.

• Cooling for lower ASIC temperatures and a slower-spinning fan.
• Bitcoin miners if a second device should join the same node.
• Sovereign Stack V2 if you would rather have the Nerdaxe Gamma with the larger display instead of the Bitaxe.

If you want to verify Bitcoin yourself and compute on blocks at the same time, the V1 is the shortest route: one node, one miner, both openly documented and both on your own network.