Is home mining worth it?
Short answer: for the money alone, usually not at typical US power prices. It depends on what you pay for electricity, and whether you want the heat or the lottery.
1. It depends on your power price
A miner earns a little bitcoin and spends electricity all day. If the power costs more than the bitcoin is worth, you lose money each month. Type your price above and the table updates.
| Miner | Pool /mo | Power /mo | Net /mo | Break-even /kWh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitaxe Gamma | $1.16 | $1.98 | −$0.82 | $0.088 |
| NerdQaxe++ | $4.65 | $8.76 | −$4.11 | $0.079 |
| Avalon Nano 3S | $5.81 | $16 | −$9.52 | $0.056 |
| Hammer Thor P2 | $9.69 | $19 | −$8.49 | $0.079 |
| GekkoScience KBox 22 | $21 | $37 | −$16 | $0.088 |
| Avalon Mini 3 | $36 | $88 | −$52 | $0.062 |
| Avalon Q | $87 | $184 | −$97 | $0.071 |
Pool estimate: share of the network × 144 blocks a day × the block reward, minus a 2% pool fee and a 10% safety margin, rounded down. Power runs 24/7 at full draw. Estimate. Changes with Bitcoin price and network difficulty. Reddit commenters often quote about $0.06/kWh as a cut-off; the break-even column shows it varies by miner.
2. Solo mining is a lottery
Run solo and a miner either finds a whole block, worth about $270,000 right now, or gets nothing. A Bitaxe Gamma has about a 1 in 17,000 chance a year. People do win, but plan on paying the power bill for a ticket, not for income. Solo vs pool.
3. Heat changes the math
A miner turns almost all its power into heat, like an electric space heater. If you'd heat a room with electric heat anyway, that power is a cost you'd have paid regardless, and the mining earns a little of it back.
Example: the Avalon Mini 3 draws about 800 W. An electric space heater of the same size would cost about $87/mo to run 24/7 at $0.15/kWh. The miner makes the same heat and its pool estimate is about $36/mo back. That's an estimate, and only real if you'd run electric heat anyway.
Heater miners · Best for heating a room · How heater miners work
Questions
Is home Bitcoin mining worth it?
Usually not for the money at typical US power prices. A small miner's pool estimate is often less than its power bill. It can make sense with very cheap power, as a heater you'd run anyway, or as a hobby and a solo lottery ticket.
What electricity price makes mining break even?
It depends on the miner's efficiency. Each miner page shows a break-even power price; for the miners we track today it is roughly $0.06 to $0.09 per kWh, and it moves with Bitcoin's price and difficulty.
Does a heater miner save money?
Only against electric resistance heat you'd use anyway. Then the power is heat you'd pay for regardless and the mining is a small rebate. A heat pump or gas heat is usually cheaper per unit of heat.
Not financial advice. Earnings aren't guaranteed and change with Bitcoin's price and network difficulty.