Stratum V1 vs V2 Support Matrix: Pools & Firmware

Stratum V1 is the original Bitcoin mining pool protocol: JSON-RPC over TCP, plain text by default, pools always build the block template. Stratum V2 is the next-generation replacement, documented in the Stratum V2 specification: binary framing (roughly 70% bandwidth reduction), mandatory Noise Protocol encryption (no unencrypted connections), and an optional Job Declaration sub-protocol that lets miners select their own transactions instead of accepting whatever the pool constructs. V2 is also faster — the specification targets job delivery in under 2.5 ms versus ~228 ms in V1. See our Stratum V2 guide for the full technical breakdown.

As of June 2026, two pools run V2 natively in production: Braiins Pool (pioneer, since ~2020, with full Job Declaration) and DEMAND Pool (DMND) (first V2-native pool, public since November 2025, also with Job Declaration). OCEAN Pool is not V2 but achieves equivalent decentralisation via DATUM. Foundry USA, AntPool, F2Pool, and MARA Pool all joined the Stratum V2 Working Group in May 2026 and are in testing or planning phases. Verify current status at each pool’s official documentation before switching.

BraiinsOS+ is the only commercially available mining firmware with a native Stratum V2 client as of June 2026. Built by Braiins — the same team that developed and open-sourced the V2 specification — it allows Antminer S9, S19 family, S21, and S21 XP miners to connect directly to V2 pools without a proxy. Every other major firmware (stock Antminer, stock WhatsMiner, VNish, LuxOS, ESP-Miner) connects via V1 only. Miners on V1 firmware can reach V2 pools by running the open-source SRI Translation Proxy locally. See our firmware comparison for the full feature matrix.

Template negotiation — formalized as the Job Declaration Protocol (JD) in the Stratum V2 specification — allows miners to build their own block templates and propose them to the pool instead of accepting whatever the pool assembles. This matters because it moves transaction selection power from pools to miners: even if a pool wanted to censor specific transactions, miners using Job Declaration can include those transactions themselves. The pool still validates work and handles payouts, but it cannot dictate which transactions enter the block. This is the core decentralisation upgrade that makes V2 more than just a performance improvement over V1.

DATUM is OCEAN Pool’s independent mining protocol, built from scratch with decentralisation as the primary design goal. The key technical difference: ASIC hardware still connects to a local DATUM Gateway via standard Stratum V1 (with BIP 310 version rolling). The gateway runs on the miner’s own machine, fetches block templates from the miner’s own Bitcoin full node, and relays only share-accounting data to OCEAN — the pool never sees the transaction list. OCEAN is cryptographically blind to what is in the block template. Stratum V2 with Job Declaration is conceptually similar but uses a different protocol stack and allows the pool to optionally audit the template before accepting it. Running DATUM requires a local Bitcoin full node (not optional). See the OCEAN guide for setup instructions.

Yes, with one additional step. The open-source SRI Translation Proxy (Stratum V2 Reference Implementation, funded by OpenSats) acts as a bridge: your ASIC connects to the proxy via standard V1, and the proxy speaks V2 to the pool. You run the proxy on a local machine (a Raspberry Pi works). The SRI proxy also supports the Job Negotiator role, so you can get transaction-selection capability even with stock V1 firmware. SRI v1.0.0 was released March 2024; v1.1.0 in October 2024. Source: github.com/stratum-mining/stratum. Credit: open-source contributor community and OpenSats.

Version rolling (BIP 310, also known as overt ASICBoost) allows miners to toggle specific bits in the Bitcoin block header version field, effectively multiplying the nonce search space by up to 65,536x without changing the actual block content. The pool and miner negotiate which bits are available via the mining.configure message with version-rolling.mask. The standard mask is 0x1FFFE000 (bits 13–28). Every firmware and pool in this matrix supports BIP 310 version rolling in production — it is universal as of June 2026. The Bible notes the default mask gives 2^16 × 2^32 = 2^48 total hash attempts per job without incrementing the extranonce. See the field manual for implementation details.

DCENT_OS is D-Central’s own open-source (GPL-3.0) mining firmware, currently in closed beta. V2 client support is a stated Phase 2 development goal, not yet available in the current beta builds. The closed beta ships with V1 client and full version rolling. Public beta is targeted for summer 2026. Dev fee defaults to 0% with a user-configurable optional donation field. DATUM protocol support is also on the roadmap. Learn more at the DCENT_OS product page.