How to Read Solo-Mining Statistics

Category: Mining and the Network · Published 2026-06-30

Technically reviewed and sourced on 2026-07-02

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Worker names are labels, nothing more

With a solo pool, your stratum username is typically your own Bitcoin address, optionally followed by a dot and a worker name — for example address.rig1. The part before the dot is where any block reward would be paid. The part after the dot is purely a label for your own dashboard, so you can tell one machine from another.

A worker name is never reserved, never checked against anything, and never affects mining. You can call your Bitaxe bitaxe, your S19 heater, or leave the label off entirely. The pool simply tags each share it receives with whatever label arrived, so its stats page can show a per-machine breakdown. Rename a worker and you have, in effect, started a fresh entry — same address, same odds, just a new row in the table.

So settle this first: choosing worker names is a bookkeeping decision. It cannot help or hurt your chance of finding a block. What follows is what actually does matter.

Odds depend on total hashrate — not how you slice it

In true-solo mining, your chance of finding a block in a given stretch of time depends on one thing: your total hashrate — how many hashes per second your hardware computes. A block is found when one of your miners produces a hash below the network target, a check that has nothing to do with how many worker names you use, which port you connect on, or what share difficulty the pool sets for you.

Because of that, ten workers under one address have exactly the same odds as a single worker with the same combined hashrate. Probabilities simply add: three machines doing 1, 5 and 100 TH/s give you the block-finding chance of 106 TH/s combined, however you label them.¹ There is no bonus for spreading hashrate across many worker names and no penalty for stacking everything under one.

For scale, at recent network difficulty a single ~100 TH/s machine averages on the order of a century-plus to a block. Those are memoryless averages, not countdowns — you could hit tomorrow or never, and variance for small miners is enormous. Naming changes none of it.

What grouping under one address gives you

If raw odds don't change, why group at all? Convenience. Putting every machine under one address with .worker labels buys you clean, unified tracking:

One set of pooled stats — your 1h/1d/7d hashrate is summed across all workers, so the estimate is steadier and closer to true (more shares means less noise).
A single payout identity — a block found by any of your workers pays the whole reward to that one shared address.
One combined best share — your best share (the single highest-difficulty hash you've ever submitted, your luckiest so far)¹ is tracked for the address, so your "closest brush" reflects your whole fleet's luck in one number.
One thing to watch — a single address page in your pool's stats, one wallet to check.

Remember a best share is your luckiest hash so far, not stored progress toward a future block, and a near-target share does not make the next attempt any more likely. You still see each machine individually thanks to the worker labels, so you lose no detail — you just also get the tidy fleet-wide totals on top.

Separate addresses: same odds, fragmented identity

What if you give each miner its own different address instead? Your total block-finding odds are unchanged — each address is its own solo entity, and the probabilities of separate entities add up to the same combined chance. You lose no luck and no money.

What you lose is tidiness. Each address is tracked separately: its own hashrate estimate, its own best share, its own closest-brush number — none of them combined. A block pays only the address whose worker found it (you still own them all, since you hold the keys to each, but the reward lands in just one). And you now have several addresses to monitor instead of one.

There is one good reason to do this on purpose: you genuinely want separate payout identities — say, splitting machines between two wallets, two people, or two accounting buckets. If that's not you, separate addresses mostly just create more dashboards to refresh.

Our recommendation

For most people running a home fleet, a common approach is to group all miners under one address and tell them apart with worker labels (for example address.rig1, address.bitaxe). That gives you summed, smoother fleet stats, a single combined best share, one payout identity, and one address to watch — with per-machine detail still visible.

Use separate addresses only when you deliberately want distinct payout identities. It costs nothing in odds but fragments your tracking, so do it for a reason, not by accident.

Separately from naming, many pools offer difficulty tiers or ports sized for different hardware; matching your machine to the appropriate tier keeps your share rate — and therefore your stats — clean. That is a statistics choice, not an odds choice.

FAQ

Do more worker names give me more chances to find a block?

No. Your odds depend only on your total hashrate. Ten workers under one address have exactly the same chance as one worker of the same combined hashrate — worker names are just labels.

If different miners share one address, who gets paid when a block is found?

In a solo pool the whole block reward goes to that shared address, no matter which worker found it — the block subsidy plus that block's transaction fees, minus any fee the pool charges. Confirm a given pool's fee and payout method from its own documentation.

Is it worse to stack several miners under one worker name?

No penalty at all. You can run every machine under the same name or split them into separate labels; the odds are identical. Separate labels just let the stats page show per-machine numbers.

When should I use separate addresses instead of one?

Only when you actually want separate payout identities — for example, splitting machines between two wallets or two people. The total odds are the same; you just get fragmented stats and more addresses to watch.

Does grouping change my best share or closest brush?

It combines them. Under one address your best share is the single highest-difficulty hash from any of your workers, so your closest-brush "1 in N" reflects your whole fleet. Separate addresses each track their own.

Key takeaways

Worker names are labels only — they never change your probability of finding a block.
Combining machines helps solely by summing real hashrate; there is no bonus for splitting or penalty for stacking.
A 'best share' is your luckiest hash so far, not stored progress toward a future block.
Grouping under one address gives unified stats, one payout identity, and one combined best share.
Pool interfaces may aggregate and window worker stats differently.

Sources

Bitcoin developer documentation — Bitcoin Project