Glossary

Open-Source Software

16/04/2026

Open-source software is software whose source code is made publicly available, allowing anyone to inspect, modify, and distribute it. Open-source development is fundamental to the cryptocurrency ecosystem — Bitcoin, Ethereum, and nearly all mining software are open-source.

Why open source matters in crypto

  • Trustless verification — anyone can audit the code to confirm there are no backdoors or malicious functions
  • Community development — contributors worldwide can propose improvements and fix bugs
  • Forks — open-source code enables anyone to create a fork of a blockchain or tool
  • Transparency — miners can verify exactly what their mining software is doing

Open-source mining software

Most mining software is distributed as open-source via GitHub:

  • XMRig — Monero/RandomX CPU miner
  • lolMiner — multi-algorithm GPU miner
  • T-Rex — NVIDIA GPU miner
  • CGMiner / BFGMiner — Bitcoin ASIC miners

Open-source licenses

Common licenses: MIT, GPL, Apache 2.0. They differ in terms of what users must do if they modify and redistribute the code.

See also

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