[I changed the URL to go to braiins(.)com/os/plus/license and there was a 404 error.]

Hi everyone,

This post is regarding the dev fee in Braiins and my concerns with their Stratum V2 protocol.

Here’s what their FAQ says about the “dev fee”:

When you use Braiins OS+, we collect a 2-2.5% dev fee (depending on hardware model) by directing that percentage of your hashing power to our pool. It’s up to you which pool you mine with for the remaining 97.5-98%. Note that the dev fee is never exactly the specified percentage of your total hashing power, as this number is always changing in real-time whenever you are mining. However, it will always remain within a fixed tolerance as described in the License.

When you click on the License hyperlink it takes you to the License for their other product, Farm Proxy. (https://braiins.com/farm-proxy/license) That license makes no mention of a dev fee.

Here is the interesting part.

I changed the URL to go to braiins(.)com/os/plus/license and there was a 404 error.
I proceeded to save this page on the Waybackmachine on archive.org (on July 26th) - you can check it out here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220726060453/braiins.com/os/plus/license

(I will explain later in this post why I saved it on archive.org)

I contacted their team about this last month and told them to fix this. Here is what they had to say:

I'll follow up on it from our team and will let you know ASAP.

Regards,

--
Behzad
Support Team

braiins.com I slushpool.com

They did not correct the link. As of today, they still haven’t.
I contacted them again early this month, and they gave me the exact same response.

I contacted them again, and asked if they could simply send a link to the real license, as they must’ve made one. I got a reply 3 or 4 days later on 2022-08-04, and it was exactly what I assumed they would do.

​

You can read Braiins OS+ license here: https://braiins.com/os/plus/license

Regards,

--
Behzad
Support Team

braiins.com I slushpool.com

So theres that. They changed the link that I saved earlier that goes to a 404 page to show the real license, only a few days ago. I have emails with them to support this. Here is what their license says:

You acknowledge that due to the nature of computing power and computing power routing it is not technically possible to always assign the exact percentage of computing power. Therefore, You acknowledge that the amount of computing power actually assigned by the Software at the start of each session is random and it takes few seconds before a correct percentage of computing power is assigned. For the same reasons the amount of computing power assigned at any given time to perform processing operations for Braiins may be as much as 10 % higher or lower than the amount agreed above according to the section 5 hereof.

What do we see from all this?

• Braiins only added the license for their site after I asked them for it
• The original link to the license on every page of their site still goes to https://braiins.com/farm-proxy/license as of today despite my numerous attempts to point it out to them.  As of September 2nd, it now redirects to the real license. However, they were aware of this error for months and simply refused to fix it.
• The license says the computing power at the "start of every session" is random and takes few seconds before a "correct percentage ... is assigned". Yet in the next sentence, it then says "the amount of computing power assigned at any given time to perform processing operations for Braiins may be as much as 10 % higher or lower". So, which one is it? These statements are contradictory, or at the very least designed to be misleading.
• Braiins OS+ is closed source, and theres no way in the software to show how much is going to this "dev fee". It simply shows the total hash rate, always.
• A bit unrelated but: the Stratum V2 protocol they've been spearheading would allow them to do whatever they want and take whatever hash power, as it is encrypted and no one would be able to tell

My advice for everyone is to use the stock Bitmain firmware (the company Artemis3 here seems to hate with a passion) because it gives the exact same hash rate as Braiins OS+. Yes, it really does. For example, on an Antminer S9 their new firmware gives several options, and one of them is to increase the hash rate by 2TH. I tried this myself, and my hash rate is 16.5th/s - the exact same I got with Braiins.

I wish people here would stop blindly trusting shady firmwares without reading into things and start asking questions.
What is a dev fee? Where can we see it? Why is the link for their license going to a different product? Why would Bitmain prevent you, the customer, from making it difficult to install a custom firmware? Miners are not game consoles. Bitmain is not Nintendo or Sony. Bitmain calls custom firmwares viruses on their official website - is that not what this is? Braiins OS+ does not show you how much of your hash rate is going towards this dev fee. There's no doubt that this is by design.

In my opinion, these are huge issues and a stain on Braiins. I can no longer trust them, nor can I support the Stratum V2 protocol that they are spearheading since it seems like an obvious way to encrypt data from their dev fee to their server (as much as up to 10%) without anyone noticing.

Edit: as of September 2nd, the links to their website now redirect to their actual license - I have updated the post to reflect that. My other concerns still remain.