Solo Mining
Mining independently without a pool. The miner receives the full block reward if they find a block, but earns nothing otherwise.
What is Solo Mining?
Solo mining means mining Bitcoin independently without joining a pool. The miner runs their own full node, constructs their own block templates, and keeps 100% of the block reward (subsidy plus transaction fees) if they find a valid block. However, they earn absolutely nothing until they find one.
How Solo Mining Works
- The miner runs a Bitcoin full node and mining software
- Their hardware hashes block candidates independently
- If a valid block is found, the miner receives the entire reward (currently 3.125 BTC + transaction fees)
- If no block is found, there is zero income -- no partial payments exist
The probability of finding a block depends entirely on the ratio of the miner's hashrate to the total network hashrate. With the network at over 600 EH/s, even a powerful 200 TH/s ASIC has roughly a 1 in 3,000,000 chance of finding any given block.
The Math Behind Solo Mining
For a miner with 200 TH/s at 600 EH/s network hashrate:
- Expected time between blocks: approximately 5.7 years
- Daily probability of finding a block: approximately 0.05%
This means solo mining is essentially a lottery. The expected value is the same as pool mining (minus pool fees), but the variance is extreme. Most solo miners go months or years without any income, then receive a large lump sum if they get lucky.
When Solo Mining Makes Sense
Solo mining is only viable for operations with very significant hashrate -- typically multiple petahashes per second. At that scale, blocks are found frequently enough to provide somewhat regular income, and avoiding pool fees (typically 1-4%) saves meaningful amounts over time.
Some miners choose solo mining for ideological reasons: it maximizes decentralization by not concentrating hashrate in pools, and the miner has full control over which transactions they include in blocks.
Solo Mining Pools
Some services offer "solo mining pools" which are not traditional pools. They provide the infrastructure (stratum server, block template construction) but do not share rewards. If your hardware finds a block, you keep it all. You simply pay a small service fee for the infrastructure.