Solo vs pool mining
Every miner, from a Bitaxe to a heater miner, can run one of two ways. One is a lottery ticket, the other is a small, steady paycheck.
Solo: the lottery
Your miner tries to find the next Bitcoin block by itself. If it wins, you get the whole block reward, about 3.125 BTC plus fees. If it doesn't, you get nothing. For a home miner the odds are tiny, but small solo miners have won blocks, and that thrill is why many Bitaxe owners run solo.
| Miner | Stated hashrate | Avg. wait for a solo block |
|---|---|---|
| Bitaxe Gamma | ≈1.2 TH/s | ~16,000 yrs |
| Avalon Nano 3S | ≈6 TH/s | ~3,200 yrs |
| Avalon Mini 3 | ≈37.5 TH/s | ~510 yrs |
| Avalon Q | ≈90 TH/s | ~210 yrs |
Illustration only: assumes a network of 1,000 EH/s (mempool.space showed about 1,050 EH/s on Oct 21, 2026) and 144 blocks a day. It's an average: a block could come tomorrow or never, and the network keeps growing, which makes the odds worse.
Pool: the steady paycheck
Thousands of miners combine their hashrate in a pool. The pool finds blocks regularly and splits each reward by how much work everyone did, minus a pool fee. You get small, regular payouts instead of all or nothing.
On average a pool pays about what solo mining would over a very long time, just smoothed out, minus the fee. Pool payouts move with Bitcoin's price and the network's total hashrate, so nobody can promise a fixed amount.
Which should you pick?
- Bitaxe and other tiny miners: usually solo. A pool would pay them very little, so the long-shot is the fun part. Best for solo mining.
- Heater miners: usually pool, so the heat you'd pay for anyway earns a little back. Best for pool mining · Heater miners.
- You can switch anytime. It's a setting in the miner (the pool address), not a different device.
Keep reading
Not financial advice. Mining costs electricity, and earnings aren't guaranteed.