So, looking at raw numbers with 50,000 devices:
Your individual odds = 1 in 50,000
Waiting time = 75-80 days
So you're looking at:
• A 0.002% chance of mining a block
• Waiting ~2.5 months for that tiny chance
With 1 million devices:
Your individual odds = 1 in 1,000,000
Waiting time = 3-5 days
That's:
• A 0.0001% chance of mining a block
• Every 3-5 days, someone in that million gets lucky
• But it's probably not you
However, these statistics are oversimplified. Here's how Bitcoin mining actually works:
Your real chance of mining a block = (Your hashrate / Total network hashrate)
For perspective:
• With 1 TH/s of mining power, odds are roughly 1 in 249,694,649 per block
• A new block is mined every ~10 minutes
• But it's a continuous probability game, not a scheduled event
When more devices join the network:
1. The total network hashrate increases
2. Your individual device's hashrate stays the same
3. Therefore, your relative share (and odds) decrease
So when they say 'a device will mine a block every X days,' it's misleading—it's a network-wide statistic, like saying 'someone will win the lottery every drawing.' It doesn't improve your individual device's chances; more competition actually makes your odds worse.
This is why solo mining has largely been replaced by industrial mining operations—the odds for individual miners have become increasingly unfavorable as the network has grown.
I don't gamble, and I don't play the lottery. These devices are fun and educational, but they are expensive lottery tickets with worse odds.
Replies (14)
So you're telling me there's a chance 👀
i have not usually agreed very much with you in the past but you are spot on about this
the mathematical principle that governs this is called a "poisson point process" and this is the same thing that is in play with radioactive decay and other types of half-life, for instance, use by dates are calculated on this basis, in drug testing a standard preliminary test is the LD50, which usually is done with lab rats, who are most physiologically similar to humans, and the number is based on the dose that kills half of the test subjects - lethal dose 50%
in chemistry the principle is called "mass action" and more generally is covered by the subject of "probability"
your chances of winning a block are literally one in a million, you don't know which of that million it will be, that's the poisson part, but there is 144 blocks per day and there hasn't even been a million blocks yet
the logic of pooling is very clear, it is a risk-sharing system where everyone's contribution is measured in some secure way and the amount of contribution you make to the number of attempts on a block are counted as your share and your reward matches that proportion
it essentially eliminates the "lumpiness" of the distribution of your chances of mining a block and gives you a regular reward based on the amount of work you are contributing to the pool's work
it was one of the things that was beneficial with PoW schemes with short blocks (like ethereum's minimal 15 second block time) - that's a lot more chances for a solo miner to actually get a block in a short period of time... but there is other downsides to such short block times, latency being a big problem there, because while 12 seconds is the average block propagation time (as in, if you win a block but someone else did at the same time) then it's about which block reaches the network's majority first, because that is the one that gets at teh head of the block and becomes the new best block
you probably also know that the occasions at which two miners find a block within a short time period of each other is surprisingly high, and the shorter the block time target, the more likely such a collision occurs - this is why bitcoin's block time is 10 minutes, this reduces the chances of solutions coming at less time than the minimal average latency distance between them
which also means that bitcoin mining has to go to pools sooner rather than later, in order to be economically viable
solo mining is fine, and fun and all, but if you are doing it, keep in mind you may be waiting literally over 15 years to get a block, and that's a lot of time and power bills to pay in the meantime
I like that these devices increase the odds that even a small amount of blocks keep being won each year by people ignoring the odds, which is a collective good for Bitcoin.
If that's a game you're into playing, then by all means, go for it. It's fun and educational. It's the marketing spin I was responding to, and that was not their pitch, because it wouldn't sell more Bitaxes. Personally, I would rather take that money and stack more sats (which is also a collective good for Bitcoin). To each their own.
@Ava So, ..... 🧡
👆this. Just do it. Math sucks anyway. Who likes math?
This
👆🥄👀
When you sign a #BTC transaction, or research an address, where do you broadcast your message?
Anonymity is priceless…
With a Bitaxe, solo-mining is not the only option. OCEAN.xyz released the DATUM protocol so anyone can use their own block template, participating in the decentralization of mining, but still be in a pool and share the reward when a block is mined by the pool.
They are supposed to have lightning payouts but those don't work at the moment.
This is what I do. I have 2 Bitaxe. Running datum and getting paid to my lightning node.
individual mining stopped realistically when CPUs were changed for GPUs then ASIC mining on the scale that its at now.. SOLO Satoshi is a cool gadget to have.. id say buy 3 and point 2 towards a mining pool and leave one on a solo mining operation.. getting paid daily in sats is a cool way to show people and also use the free sats for zapping..
Hmmm 🤔 interesting numbers
