FAQ

Solo mining is a method of cryptocurrency mining where a miner works alone, without joining a mining pool. Instead of combining their mining power with others, a solo miner attempts to solve cryptographic puzzles on their own to add new blocks to the blockchain.

A Bitcoin solo miner like Bitaxe is a small, specialised mining device that mines Bitcoin independently — without joining a mining pool. A solo miner has both the mining chip and the necessary logic to mine solo.

Yes — some individuals have hit Bitcoin blocks with small solo miners, though it’s extremely rare.

Infrequent Payouts: Without pooled resources, it's much harder to find blocks. This means solo miners may go for long periods with no reward. Higher Risk, Higher Reward: There's no steady income like in pool mining, but the rewards, when achieved, are much larger.

Solo Mining = Big reward, rare win, full control, high risk. Pool Mining = Smaller rewards, steady payouts, less risk, easier setup.

Hashrate refers to the speed at which a miner can compute hashes, and it's a critical factor in determining how quickly a miner can find a valid block. Higher hashrates mean more guesses per second and, therefore, a better chance of successfully mining a block.

A block reward is the amount of cryptocurrency (e.g., Bitcoin) given to a miner when they successfully solve a block's cryptographic puzzle and add it to the blockchain. For Bitcoin, the current block reward is 3.125 BTC (as of 2024, post-halving). This reward decreases over time due to periodic halvings.

A share is a partial solution that a miner submits to the mining pool (or a solo mining setup). It shows the progress they’ve made on the cryptographic puzzle. In solo mining, while shares are typically used in pool mining to determine payout, "shares" are not directly rewarded since there’s no pool payout. However, submitting shares helps validate progress toward finding a block.

Best Share Submitted refers to the best hash or share that a miner has found during their mining attempt, which proves that they are actively working on finding a solution. In solo mining, it doesn't necessarily mean the miner has found a block, but it shows they are consistently working toward solving the cryptographic problem.

A nonce (short for "number only used once") is a variable that miners adjust in their hash calculations to try and find a valid block hash. In Bitcoin mining, miners repeatedly adjust the nonce and hash the block header until they find a valid hash that meets the target difficulty.

Difficulty is a measure of how hard it is to find a valid block. It adjusts dynamically to ensure that new blocks are mined approximately every 10 minutes (for Bitcoin). The higher the difficulty, the more computational power (hashrate) is required to find a block. Solo miners with lower hashrates face much higher difficulty and much lower chances of finding a block.

The block target or target hash is the maximum hash value a miner is trying to achieve when attempting to find a valid block. The lower the target, the higher the difficulty. The target hash changes dynamically with the network difficulty to ensure that blocks are mined at a predictable rate (around every 10 minutes).

Choosing a wallet for solo mining is an important step because your mining rewards will be sent directly to this wallet when you successfully find a block. Also checkout the wallets listed on our home page.