Best Difficulty, explained
What the number is
Your miner makes a hash, and a hash is just a number. Almost every one of them is too big to be worth anything. How small a hash came out is written as a difficulty: difficulty 1 is the easy bar a pool share clears, and the smaller the hash, the bigger the difficulty it satisfied.
Best Difficulty is the hardest single hash your miner has produced — the highest difficulty any one of its hashes satisfied. AxeOS puts it on the home screen. NerdQAxe firmware uses the same label. Public Pool shows one per address. Some pools call it your best share; it is the same number under another name.
What it is measured against
Bitcoin's difficulty, read from SoloLuck's own Bitcoin node as this page rendered, is 127.45T. A block is a share that hard. So the whole calculation is one division: Bitcoin's difficulty divided by yours is 1 in how many of a Bitcoin block your best share was.
A worked example, measured: at the census reading of 2026-09-16 15:07 UTC, the hardest share Public Pool had recorded for any of its 16,820 connected Bitaxes was 79.86G. Against today's difficulty that one share was 1 in 2 thousand of a Bitcoin block: the hardest hash among tens of thousands of machines, and a block still needed one that much harder again.
What a good one looks like
At the census reading of 2026-09-16 15:07 UTC, this is the hardest single share Public Pool had recorded against each of its most-connected device names, and what each one was worth against today's difficulty.
| Device name, as reported | Connected | Hardest share | Of a Bitcoin block |
|---|---|---|---|
| bitaxe | 16,820 | 79.86G | 1 in 2 thousand |
| NerdQAxe++ | 1,995 | 126.24G | 1 in 1 thousand |
| NerdMiner | 1,348 | 80.77M | 1 in 1.6 million |
| cgminer | 760 | 194.04G | 1 in 657 |
| LuckyMiner | 672 | 2.00G | 1 in 64 thousand |
| NerdAxe | 507 | 15.99G | 1 in 8 thousand |
| Other | 448 | 95 | 1 in 1.3 trillion |
| cpuminer | 406 | 274.98K | 1 in 463.5 million |
| NerdOCTAXE | 329 | 67.75G | 1 in 2 thousand |
| bitaxe/sv2 | 258 | 30.54G | 1 in 4 thousand |
| NerdNOS | 250 | 320.77M | 1 in 397 thousand |
| Starminer | 228 | 2.47G | 1 in 52 thousand |
Public Pool clears an address's best share when the pool finds a block, so these are bests since its last block, not bests ever. Every name is in the Solo Mining Census.
A yardstick for one machine: at the census average of 1.05 TH/s, a Bitaxe's hardest share of a day comes out above 30.35M on about half of its days, and below it on the other half. (A day of hashes at that speed, divided by 232 × ln 2.) There is nothing to beat and nothing to bank — the next day starts from the same place.
Why a big one does not help the next one
Every hash is a fresh draw. The chance that the next one solves a block is the same as it was before your record share, and the same as it was on the machine's first day. A big Best Difficulty is luck caught, not progress: nothing is stored, nothing carries forward, and nothing is owed to you.
That is why an honest pool never shows a bar filling toward a block. There is no partial block. A share at half a block's difficulty is not half a block; it is a share that lost, exactly like the easy one before it.
It also means two numbers with the same label can measure different spans. Public Pool resets each address's best share when it finds a block. solo.ckpool.org and its sister nodes keep a best-ever figure per node. Your miner's own screen counts only the shares that miner made. Read the label before you compare.
How to read yours
- AxeOS shows Best Difficulty on the miner's own home screen, beside the live hashrate.
- NerdQAxe firmware uses the same label in the same place.
- Public Pool shows it for the address in your Stratum User field, on its own site.
- SoloLuck lists it at
https://sololuck.io/users/your-address, and the hardest shares the pool has ever seen are on the high scores.
To turn yours into a card you can post, with 1 in how many of a Bitcoin block it was, use the Best Share Card: it reads Public Pool, solo.ckpool.org or SoloLuck once, for the address you paste. SoloLuck is read there on the same terms as the others. SoloLuck has not found a Bitcoin block.
FAQ
What is Best Difficulty on a Bitaxe?
It is the hardest single hash your miner has produced, written as the difficulty that hash satisfied. AxeOS, NerdQAxe firmware and Public Pool all use the label, and some pools call it your best share. It is a record of luck already had, not a score you build up.
What counts as a good Best Difficulty?
The only comparison that means anything is Bitcoin's own difficulty: divide it by yours and you get 1 in how many of a Bitcoin block your best share was. A day at a small miner's speed normally produces a best share far too easy for a block, and that is ordinary, not a fault.
Does a high Best Difficulty mean I am nearly there?
No. Every hash is a fresh draw. A share at half a block's difficulty is not half a block; it is a share that lost. The chance your next hash solves a block is exactly what it was before your record share.
Why did my Best Difficulty go down?
Public Pool clears each address's best share whenever the pool finds a block, so the figure it shows is the best since that block rather than the best ever. Your miner's own screen keeps its own count. Two numbers with the same label can be measuring different spans.
Ready to start solo mining?
Paste your address and copy the config from /setup, find your port and difficulty floor on /connect, watch the pool on /status, and check every claim on /verify. Mine to your own address — that is what makes it truly solo.
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