What is solo Bitcoin mining?
Definition · Solo mining
Mining without a pool. Your machine works on its own block, and if it finds a valid one, the whole block reward goes to your address. If it doesn’t, you get nothing.
Most miners join a mining pool, which adds up everyone’s work and pays each member a slice of every block the pool finds. Solo miners skip that. The prize is bigger, but it arrives all at once or not at all.
The same hashrate, paid two ways
Why would anyone do it? For big operators it can make sense, because with enough hashrate the luck evens out. For a home miner it’s a long-shot bet with a tiny ticket price, and some people simply like that it’s their own block if it ever lands.
How do solo mining odds work?
Each block is a race that the whole network runs. Your chance of winning any one block is your share of the total hashrate. The network makes about 144 blocks a day, so your chances add up over time.
average wait = 1 Ă· (chance per block Ă— 144) days
950 EH/s
Network hashrate
live, updated hourly
144
Blocks a day
one every 10 minutes on average
3.145BTC
Block reward
incl. average fees
0.00000013%
One Bitaxe Gamma’s share
1.2 TH/s
Average wait for one block, mining solo
“Average wait” is easy to misread. It doesn’t mean you’ll win when that time is up. Even after waiting twice the average, about one miner in seven still hasn’t found a block. And the network usually grows, which stretches everyone’s wait.
What is a Bitaxe, and why do people solo mine with one?
A Bitaxe is an open-source miner about the size of a phone. It uses a single ASIC chip, runs from a small power supply and joins your Wi-Fi. It’s the most common way people try solo mining at home. The Bitaxe guide compares every model, and the NerdMiner guide covers the even smaller ESP32 miners.
1.2 TH/s
Hashrate
Bitaxe Gamma, as its makers rate it. A few hundred times less than one industrial ASIC.
18 W
Power
About 158 kWh a year running nonstop. At 15¢ per kWh that’s about $24 a year: the ticket price.
Quiet
Noise
One small fan. It can sit on a desk, unlike an industrial miner.
Open
Open source
The hardware and the ESP-Miner firmware are public, so you can read exactly what it does.
People run them to learn how mining works, to point a little hashrate at a pool they like, or for the thrill of a ticket that never expires. At today’s odds a Bitaxe has about 1 in 15,057 chance of a block in a year. Fun to watch, but not a plan.
Solo vs pool mining: what’s the difference?
| Solo | Pool | |
|---|---|---|
| You get | The whole block, if you find one | A share of every block the pool finds |
| How often | Rarely or never, for small miners | Small amounts, often |
| Fees | None with your own node, or a small solo-pool fee | A pool fee, typically a few percent |
| What decides it | Pure luck | Mostly your hashrate, luck is shared |
| Suits | Big miners, or hobbyists buying a long-shot ticket | Almost everyone who wants regular payouts |
Over an extremely long run, solo and pool mining work out to about the same amount before fees. The difference is variance: how far your real result swings from that average. The mining pools guide simulates it, and shows how pools pay with PPS, FPPS and PPLNS.
How do you mine solo?
There are two ways. Both need a miner and your own Bitcoin address.
- 1
With a solo pool
Point your miner at a solo pool’s Stratum address and use your Bitcoin address as the worker name. The pool builds the block template and takes a small fee only if you win.
- 2
With your own node
Run Bitcoin Core plus mining software that builds blocks from it. No fee, and you choose the transactions, but it takes more setup.
- 3
Check it’s hashing
The pool’s page or your node should show your hashrate. Small devices show “best difficulty”, the closest you’ve come so far.
- 4
Leave it running
Then forget about it. Checking often doesn’t change the odds.
Read a solo pool’s terms before you start, including its fee and what happens if it goes offline. A home miner uses real electricity whether it wins or not, so keep an eye on your bill.
What happens if you find a block?
Congratulations, you beat the odds. Here’s what follows:
- 1
Your block goes out
Your node or the solo pool broadcasts it. If another miner’s block for the same height spreads faster, yours can end up orphaned. That’s rare.
- 2
The reward lands
The coinbase transaction pays the subsidy plus the block’s fees to your address, about 3.145BTC on an average block today.
- 3
It matures
Newly mined coins need about 100 confirmations before they can be spent, roughly 17 hours.
- 4
Sort out the paperwork
Mining rewards may be taxable where you live. Check the rules before you spend or sell.
Can you mine bitcoin without the lottery?
Yes. In the CloudMineCrypto app you mine for free with the free plan, ads, games, offers and daily check-ins, and your BTC balance grows while your plans run, from their hashrate and live network data. No device, no power bill, no waiting for a block. Withdraw to your own wallet, Lightning included. Want more speed? Add an optional paid plan.
Good to know: rewards are estimates, move with the network and aren’t guaranteed. A plan doesn’t give you ownership of, or a share in, any specific hardware or pool. Terms apply.
Frequently asked questions
What is solo Bitcoin mining?
Mining on your own instead of in a pool. If your machine finds a valid block you keep the whole block reward, but if it doesn’t you get nothing. For home hardware that makes it a lottery ticket rather than a way to earn.
What are the odds of solo mining a block with a Bitaxe?
Very long. Your chance per block is your hashrate divided by the network’s, and there are about 144 blocks a day. The calculator at the top of this page shows the live odds per day, month and year for any hashrate.
Has anyone won a block solo with small hardware?
Yes, it happens now and then, and solo pools publish the blocks their users find. It’s rare, and every win is luck: the odds for each hash are the same no matter how long you’ve been mining.
Does solo mining pay the same as a pool on average?
Over an extremely long time the average is about the same, minus fees. For a small miner that average is meaningless, because the realistic outcome over any human timescale is zero blocks.
What happens if I find a block solo?
The block reward, the subsidy plus the fees in that block, goes to the address in your block’s coinbase transaction. It needs about 100 confirmations, roughly 17 hours, before it can be spent. A solo pool may take a small fee.
Is a Bitaxe worth it?
Treat it as a hobby and a lottery ticket. It uses about as much power as a small light bulb, it’s quiet, and it’s a great way to learn how mining works. It won’t pay back its price through mining.
Sources and further reading
- Mining guide: solo mining and pool mining · Bitcoin developer documentation
- Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System · Satoshi Nakamoto (bitcoin.org)
- Pooled mining · Bitcoin Wiki
- Mining · Bitcoin Wiki
- Solo CKPool: an example solo pool and its public stats · CKPool
- Bitaxe: open-source Bitcoin miner · Bitaxe project
- Bitaxe Gamma hardware · Bitaxe project (GitHub)
- ESP-Miner firmware · Bitaxe project (GitHub)
Live figures on this page come from the CloudMineCrypto API or from the public blockchain data services named next to them, refresh on a schedule, and are labelled where they appear. This guide is educational and not financial advice. CloudMineCrypto is not an investment product; rewards in the app are estimates and aren’t guaranteed.
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