diff --git a/README b/README
index 3f203750..126cb2f6 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -287,8 +287,8 @@ miners and is set to 30 seconds by default to help perpetuate transactions for
 the health of the bitcoin network.
 
 "version_mask" : This is a mask of which bits in the version number it is valid
-for a client to alter and is expressed as an hex string. Eg "7FFFFFFB"
-Default is "00000000".
+for a client to alter and is expressed as an hex string. Eg "00fff000"
+Default is "1fffe000".
 
 "serverurl" : This is the IP(s) to try to bind ckpool uniquely to, otherwise it
 will attempt to bind to all interfaces in port 3333 by default in pool mode
diff --git a/ckpool.conf b/ckpool.conf
index fa461022..d4935da8 100644
--- a/ckpool.conf
+++ b/ckpool.conf
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 "nonce1length" : 4,
 "nonce2length" : 8,
 "update_interval" : 30,
-"version_mask" : "00000000",
+"version_mask" : "1fffe000",
 "serverurl" : [
 	"ckpool.org:3333",
 	"node.ckpool.org:3333",
diff --git a/src/ckpool.c b/src/ckpool.c
index be13551e..2cb0565e 100644
--- a/src/ckpool.c
+++ b/src/ckpool.c
@@ -1472,6 +1472,8 @@ static void parse_config(ckpool_t *ckp)
 	json_get_string(&vmask, json_conf, "version_mask");
 	if (vmask && strlen(vmask) && validhex(vmask))
 		sscanf(vmask, "%x", &ckp->version_mask);
+	else
+		ckp->version_mask = 0x1fffe000;
 	/* Look for an array first and then a single entry */
 	arr_val = json_object_get(json_conf, "serverurl");
 	if (!parse_serverurls(ckp, arr_val)) {