Does stratum latency matter for solo mining?

⚖️The honest answer first

Latency does not change your odds of solving a block. Those odds depend only on your hashrate versus the whole network, and they are identical on every pool no matter where its server sits. Anyone who tells you a closer pool gives you a better chance at a block is wrong. What latency does affect is wasted work — and for a busy miner that is a small but real efficiency, not a lottery edge.

⏱️Where the milliseconds actually go

When a new block is found anywhere on the network, your pool has to push you fresh work built on that new tip. Until that new-work message reaches you, your miner keeps hashing on the old block — and any share it submits for the old block is stale and thrown away. The farther the pool, the longer that window, and the more shares are wasted at every block change (roughly every ten minutes). A close pool also means faster share submission and fewer dropped connections for devices that reconnect a lot.

📡Measured latency from Indonesia

This is our own measurement, and it is one line on one day. A home connection in Indonesia, June 2026, best of 5 TCP connects to each pool's stratum endpoint. It says nothing about yours: round-trip time varies by ISP, country and route — from Singapore or Malaysia, ckpool's Singapore node may be the closest hop. Measure your own before you believe anybody, ours included — the Ping Race times each pool from your own browser, or re-run the script below from your own line:

On that one line the gap to a US-only solo pool was large (~40×); to a nearer node like ckpool-Singapore or an anycast pool it was small. Which of those your own connection looks like is a question only your own connection can answer. We'd rather you see the real numbers than a marketing claim.

🧪Test it yourself

Don't take our word for it. From a terminal, time the TCP handshake to any pool's stratum port. It warms DNS first, then keeps the fastest of five connects — so you measure the network hop, not a one-off DNS lookup or blip:

python3 -c "
import socket, time
host, port = 'stratum.sololuck.io', 3333
socket.getaddrinfo(host, port)       # warm DNS first
best = float('inf')
for _ in range(5):
    start = time.perf_counter()
    socket.create_connection((host, port), 5).close()
    best = min(best, (time.perf_counter() - start) * 1000)
print(round(best, 1), 'ms (best of 5)')
"

Swap in any other pool's stratum host and compare the numbers. That TCP round-trip is the network hop — exactly what stale-share waste tracks.

🎯So when does it matter?

• A big ASIC (S19/S21) submitting many shares per second — more shares means more stale ones near a block change, so a nearer node saves measurably more work.
• Low-power devices that reconnect often (some Bitaxe/nerdminer firmware) — a short hop means faster reconnects and fewer missed shares.
• It barely matters for a single hobby Bitaxe on a stable line — pick on fee, tiers and trust instead. See /compare.

⛏️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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