SoloLuck

Difficulty and the four ports: which one should you mine on?

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SoloLuck Blog · 2026-06-30

The four ports at a glance

SoloLuck is a true-solo pool: you mine to your own Bitcoin address, so when you find a block the full reward — the 3.125 BTC subsidy plus that block's transaction fees — is paid straight to your address by the block itself, minus a 2% fee that only ever applies when a block is actually found (no block, no fee). The pool never holds your coins. You connect your miner to one of four stratum ports on the host stratum.sololuck.io (also 148.230.98.87):

The names are just shorthand for who each port suits. The real difference between them is one number: the difficulty floor.

What a "difficulty floor" actually means

Your miner doesn't send every hash it computes to the pool — that would be billions per second. Instead it sends a share: a hash that clears a much easier target than a real block. Share difficulty is how hard that easier target is, and the pool uses your shares to estimate your hashrate and power your stats.

SoloLuck runs vardiff (variable difficulty): ckpool automatically tunes each miner's share difficulty so you submit roughly one share every few seconds. Too-easy shares flood the pool; too-hard shares arrive so rarely your stats look dead. Vardiff hunts for the sweet spot for your hashrate.

Every miner starts at a global startdiff of 4,000. A port's floor is simply the lowest difficulty vardiff is allowed to use for you. On Lite and Nano (floors below 4,000) you start at 4,000 and vardiff can fall toward the floor; on Standard and Pro (floors above 4,000) you start right at the floor. There's no upper cap — vardiff raises your difficulty as high as your hashrate warrants.

The myth: does a higher-difficulty port "earn more"?

Here's the part that trips people up. In solo mining, your share difficulty has zero effect on your chance of finding a block. A block is found when your miner produces a hash below the network target — a check Bitcoin does independently of whatever share difficulty your pool happens to set. Choosing the Pro port over Lite does not make a block more likely by a single hash.

So what does the port change? Only how often you submit shares, which drives your stats, your vardiff, and your "best share" number. That's it. A higher-difficulty port means fewer, chunkier shares; a lower one means more, smaller shares. Same hashrate, same odds, a different-looking dashboard.

If you remember one thing: match the port to your hashrate for clean stats, not for better luck. Anyone who tells you the Pro port "earns more" in solo is mistaking a stats setting for a lottery ticket.

Which port for your hardware

Pick the port whose floor roughly fits how fast you hash. That keeps your share rate sensible — frequent enough to feel alive, not so frequent it's just noise.

Your username stays the same on every port: bc1qexampleaddr….workername — your payout address, then an optional worker label after the dot. Not sure? Lite is a safe default for almost any home ASIC, and vardiff will sort out the rest within a day.

So why match the port at all? Clean stats.

If the port doesn't change your odds, why not just use any of them? Because a bad match makes your stats useless — and stats are how you watch a machine that might mine for years before it ever finds anything.

Put a Bitaxe on :4334 Pro and its floor is so high it may submit a share only once an hour or less. To the pool it looks offline, your hashrate estimate jumps around wildly, and you can't tell a dead miner from an unlucky one. Put a big farm on :3335 Nano and it floods the pool with tiny shares until vardiff ramps up — wasteful and noisy until it settles.

The pool can't see your chips; it estimates your hashrate from the shares you send, smoothed over 1m / 5m / 1h / 1d windows. The right port feeds that estimate enough shares to stay steady and honest. That's the whole reason to choose carefully — clarity, not luck.

A note on :3334 (TLS)

TLS (Transport Layer Security) is the same encryption your browser uses for https://. Port :3334 is an encrypted version of stratum — TLS-terminated at SoloLuck's edge and forwarded to a backend port. The mining math is identical; TLS only protects the connection, never your odds.

Why it matters: on an untrusted network — a hosting provider, a rental box, shared office Wi-Fi — someone in the middle could read or even rewrite your stratum traffic, including swapping your payout address for theirs. TLS stops that snooping and tampering. On a trusted home LAN the plaintext ports are perfectly fine.

To use it, point your miner at a TLS stratum URL, for example stratum+tcps://stratum.sololuck.io:3334, where your firmware supports it (AxeOS and cgminer vary). The CPU and latency overhead is tiny — negligible for mining.

FAQ

Does the Pro port find blocks faster than Lite?
No. In solo mining a block is found when your hash beats the network target, which is independent of your pool share difficulty. The port changes how your stats look, never your odds.
What happens if I put a Bitaxe on the Pro port?
It still mines, but the Pro floor is so high it submits shares very rarely, so its stats look erratic or even offline. Use Lite (:3333) or Nano (:3335) instead for clean, responsive readings.
Do I need to set my difficulty manually?
No. Just pick a port and vardiff tunes your share difficulty automatically from that port's floor, targeting about one share every few seconds. There's no upper cap, so it scales up with your hashrate.
Can I use TLS (:3334) on any miner?
Only where your firmware supports a TLS/SSL stratum URL like stratum+tcps://stratum.sololuck.io:3334. AxeOS and cgminer support varies; if yours doesn't, a plaintext port on a trusted network is fine.
Is there a bonus for using a higher-difficulty port?
None. Ports only set your difficulty floor for stats and vardiff. Your block odds depend solely on your total hashrate, not on which port or worker name you choose.

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