Can a Bitaxe find a block?
The short answer
Yes. A Bitaxe can find a real block, and small miners do. What decides whether that is a monthly event or a once-in-many-lifetimes one is not the miner but the coin: every SHA-256 chain sets its own difficulty, and the same Bitaxe faces a very different number on each.
The table below uses today's difficulty on each chain, read from our own nodes. Nothing in it is a promise: every hash is a fresh draw, so a block can take much longer, or come tomorrow.
The odds right now, chain by chain
About how long one miner, mining alone, can expect to wait for a block at today's difficulty on each chain. Same hardware, same SHA-256 work; only the difficulty changes. Every hash is a fresh draw, so it can take much longer, or come tomorrow.
| Miner | Bitcoin | Bitcoin Cash | DigiByte |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitaxe Gamma 1.2 TH/s | about 15,000 years | about 63 years | about 3 weeks |
| Bitaxe GT 801 2.15 TH/s | about 8,400 years | about 35 years | about 12 days |
| Bitaxe Naja Duo 4.4 TH/s | about 4,100 years | about 17 years | about 6 days |
| NerdQAxe++ 4.8 TH/s | about 3,800 years | about 16 years | about 5 days |
| Avalon Nano 3S 6 TH/s | about 3,000 years | about 13 years | about 4 days |
| Bitaxe Gamma Hex 8.4 TH/s | about 2,200 years | about 9 years | about 3 days |
| Antminer S21 200 TH/s | about 90 years | about 5 months | about 3 hours |
It has happened here. SoloLuck's DigiByte pool has found 7 blocks. Six were found by machines the pool operator runs, and one by a miner at SoloLuck. The newest found by a community miner: DigiByte block 24,261,609.
SoloLuck has not found a Bitcoin block.
Mine it here: Bitcoin · Bitcoin Cash · DigiByte.
Why the coin matters more than the miner
A block is found when a hash comes out below the chain's target. The miner does the same work on every SHA-256 chain; only the target changes. Bitcoin's difficulty is set by the whole Bitcoin network, so a 1.2 TH/s Bitaxe is a lottery ticket there. DigiByte shares its blocks between five mining algorithms, and its SHA-256 difficulty is set only by the miners who mine DigiByte with SHA-256, so it sits far below Bitcoin's and the same Bitaxe wins far more often.
Solo also means no sharing: when your hash solves a block, the whole reward goes to the address you mine with. A pool that shares rewards would pay you a tiny, steady amount instead; solo vs pooled mining explains the trade.
What a block pays
Bitcoin: 3.125 BTC plus the block's fees. Bitcoin Cash: 3.125 BCH plus fees. DigiByte: a few hundred DGB, worth far less. A DigiByte block will not pay for your Bitaxe; what it gives you is proof, on-chain and in your own wallet, that your setup can find a block alone.
Has anyone small actually done it?
Yes, on Bitcoin too, rarely. Every solo block we can verify on-chain, with the finder's hardware where it was published, is in the solo block record. Every DigiByte block this pool has found is listed on /blocks, each with its own page saying who found it, never their address.
Mine for it without giving up your pool
You do not have to move your miner to try. A Bitaxe has a fallback pool setting: put SoloLuck there and your miner keeps its main pool, and only mines here if that pool stops answering. The exact settings. To mine a coin here full-time: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash or DigiByte.
FAQ
Can a Bitaxe find a Bitcoin block?
Yes, but rarely: at recent difficulty a 1.2 TH/s Bitaxe mining alone can expect one in the order of ten thousand years on average. Small miners have won Bitcoin blocks; the live table on this page shows the current figure.
How often does a Bitaxe find a DigiByte block?
At recent DigiByte SHA-256 difficulty, about once a month on average for a 1.2 TH/s Bitaxe mining alone. It moves with the difficulty; the table on this page is live.
Does the pool change my odds?
No. Your odds depend only on your hashrate and the chain's difficulty, on any solo pool. A pool can change the fee (SoloLuck takes 0%) and whether the reward goes straight to you (here it does), not how often you win.
What happens when I find one here?
The block's coinbase pays the whole reward to the address you mine with, inside the block itself. On DigiByte, your miner's page on SoloLuck lists the blocks you found, and every block gets a page you can share, with no address on it.
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.
Start MiningCalculate Your Odds
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