TL;DR for readers in a hurry: The BitForge Nano Ghost Edition, designed by Duncan Coombe (I Am GPIO) for The Solo Mining Co, has been awarded Silver twice at the 2026 London Design Awards – in “Product Design – Digital & Electronic Devices” and in “Unexpected Design”. A rare double recognition for a piece of Bitcoin hardware and a clear signal that quiet, energy-efficient home mining has arrived in mainstream design. We warmly congratulate our friends across the Channel – and are happy to be able to ship the award-winning device directly from bitshopper.de from now on.
A double Silver for a Bitcoin home miner – this hasn’t happened before
In May 2026, the international jury of the London Design Awards published its verdict: the BitForge Nano Ghost Edition by UK-based mining specialist The Solo Mining Co picked up Silver in two categories – “Product Design – Digital & Electronic Devices” and the highly contested special category “Unexpected Design”. A Bitcoin home miner showing up at all in the finals of a global design competition that normally celebrates architecture studios, car manufacturers and consumer-electronics giants is remarkable. Taking home Silver in two of those categories is unprecedented.
“Bitcoin mining is going mainstream. ⚡️ The BitForge Nano Ghost Edition won Silver at the 2026 London Design Awards in both Product Design and Unexpected Design.”
— The Solo Mining Co, X post announcing the award
The mind behind the device is Duncan Coombe – known in the community as “I Am GPIO”, founder and lead designer of The Solo Mining Co. Coombe brings an unusual mix to the table: a background in lighting design, avionics, mechanical and electrical engineering and robotics, paired with roughly a decade of hands-on Bitcoin experience since around 2015. It is exactly this cross-over between industrial precision and Bitcoin hacker culture that lifted the Ghost Edition above the crowd in front of the jury. Alongside him: WantClue (ForgeOS firmware) and Klia90 (mining circuit design) – the official Award page on the London Design Awards lists them as co-credits.
The jury summed the device up in remarkably quotable terms:
“The BitForge Nano Ghost Edition is a design-led Bitcoin miner created to bring mining hardware out of the shed and into the home. […] Rather than hiding the technology, the Ghost Edition frames it. It reimagines Bitcoin mining as something personal, visible and beautifully integrated into modern living spaces.”
— London Design Awards · Winner-Eintrag #9066
As long-term friends and fellow travellers in the European home-mining scene, we are genuinely happy for the team – and we are taking the award as an opportunity to take a closer look at the device and what it means for the industry.
What exactly is the BitForgeNano Ghost Edition?
The BitForge Nano Ghost Edition is a compact open-source Bitcoin home miner with around 2.6 TH/s of hashrate from two BM1370 ASICs. What separates it from the standard BitForge Nano is the radically design-led refinement work by I Am GPIO: a custom extruded aluminium case, an in-house engineered heatsink, a smoked-glass viewing window with an engraved Bitcoin hash formula and – inside, as a knowing nod to the anonymous Bitcoin inventor – the “Ghost of Satoshi” figure that shimmers behind the glass. Three power profiles (Eco, Medium, Power) can be switched via the web UI: Eco for whisper-quiet operation, Power for the full 2.6 TH/s.
Engineered in Germany, refined in the UK: both the hardware and the software come out of German development — the mining circuit design by Klia90 / DTV Electronics, the ForgeOS firmware by WantClue / WantClue Technologies (open source on GitHub). The Design and Ghost Edition refinement comes out of I Am GPIO’s studio in Britain. A neat German-British co-production – and a direct kindred spirit of our own mission at bitshopper.de: making small, quiet Bitcoin miners for the home widely available across Europe.
Key specs of the award-winning device
| Feature | BitForge Nano Ghost Edition |
|---|---|
| Hashrate (max.) | ~2,6 TH/s |
| ASIC chips | 2 × BM1370 (Bitmain) |
| Performance modes | Eco / Medium / Power, switchable from the web UI |
| Power draw (max.) | 48 W (~€0.35 / day at German household tariffs) |
| Interface | Integrated Wi-Fi, ForgeOS web UI (no display required) |
| Mining mode | Solo / lottery mining or pool – freely configurable |
| Enclosure | Extruded aluminium, smoked-glass viewing window with Bitcoin hash engraving, remote-controlled internal LED lighting, Satoshi statue inside |
| Dimensions | 130 × 90 × 63 mm |
| Weight | 560 g |
| Data usage | ~1 MB per day |
| Certification | CE, developed to German safety and quality standards |
| Open source | Hardware and firmware fully open (GitHub: WantClueTechnologies) |
| Price at bitshopper.de | €299.00 incl. VAT , delivery in 2–3 business days |
Why this double Silver matters for the entire home-mining industry
The London Design Awards are not a crypto-hardware insider contest. They are a global mainstream design prize whose 2026 winners include Tencent, Leapmotor and Dreame Technology – brands with billions in revenue and hundreds of designers on staff. The fact that a single-founder project out of the open-source Bitcoin community picked up Silver twice carries a signal that goes well beyond mining itself:
- Bitcoin mining hardware has arrived in the mainstream design world. The image of the roaring, grey industrial miner in a shipping container is being replaced by living-room-ready hardware. The image of the roaring, grey industrial miner in a shipping container is being replaced by living-room-ready hardware.
- Open source can be design-led. The “Unexpected Design” win specifically recognises that a small, open community can build an ASIC device aesthetically on par with consumer-electronics conglomerates.
- Europe can design mining gear. German engineering roots (DTV Electronics for the hardware, WantClue Technologies for the firmware) plus British industrial design (I Am GPIO) show that the most exciting home-mining devices right now come out of Europe – not the traditional mining hotspots in Asia or North America.
- Home mining becomes culturally connectable. When the miner looks like a design object and earns its place next to a hi-fi system or record player, the psychological barrier to entry drops sharply for newcomers.
For us at bitshopper.de, this award is therefore much more than “congrats to a friend”. It validates the line we have been pursuing since 2014: small, quiet, energy-efficient Bitcoin miners for the home – as a hobby, an educational tool, a stepping stone to real self-custody. Devices like the Futurebit Apollo III Full Node, the GekkoScience Compac A2 and A1 and our Bitaxe range follow exactly the path the London jury just chose to honour.
What does this mean for our customers in practice?
Good news first: the BitForgeNano Ghost Edition is now available directly from bitshopper.de in Germany – at €299.00 incl. VAT , with delivery within 2–3 business days, shipped from Germany to the entire EU. No more UK import detour: you receive the award-winning device duty-free, with a proper German VAT invoice, and with our usual support out of Erlangen.
If you want to fold the Ghost Edition into your existing home-mining setup, we have the right ecosystem for it:
- Futurebit Apollo III Full Node – an all-in-one Bitcoin sovereignty device with up to 18 TH/s and an ultra-eco mode at around 70 W.
- GekkoScience Compac A2 and A1 – silent USB-stick miners at 16–17 W/TH efficiency, perfect for getting into solo mining.
- Bitaxe models – from the same open-source family that the BitForge Nano belongs to.
Our dual role as a manufacturer and specialised online shop for small, quiet, energy-efficient Bitcoin home miners since 2014, authorised European distributor for GekkoScience since 2015 and exclusive European distributor for Futurebit LLC since 2017 makes us one of Europe’s first stops for design-conscious home mining – now reinforced by the freshly awarded Ghost Edition from our friends at The Solo Mining Co.
Frequently Asked Questions
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What are the London Design Awards?
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Can I buy the BitForgeNano Ghost Edition at bitshopper.de?
What does this award mean for the home-mining industry?
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Congratulations to a good friend – and bring on the next devices
We warmly congratulate Duncan Coombe and the entire The Solo Mining Co team on this double Silver at the 2026 London Design Awards. It is deserved, it is an important signal for the industry – and it makes us look forward to whatever comes out of the I Am GPIO studio next.
If you have questions about the BitForge Nano Ghost Edition in our shop or any of our other home-mining products, drop us a line at info@bitshopper.de or call directly on +49 179 9754353. Full contact details in our imprint.
Sources & further reading
- Official Award page: London Design Awards · Winner entry #9066
- The Solo Mining Co – announcement on X: @TheSoloMiningCo
- Product page at bitshopper.de: BitForgeNano Ghost Edition – €299
- Product page at The Solo Mining Co: thesolomining.co
- Designer Duncan Coombe / I Am GPIO: LinkedIn
- Open-Source-Plattform BitForge Nano: GitHub – WantClueTechnologies
- Award organiser: London Design Awards
- Community reaction: Decentra Suze auf X
