Bitcoin Forum

[Edit: I am also new to this forum. I should probably have posted on a sub category]

This is my first post here and I am new to Bitcoin. I have been doing a lot of reading in the past week and have not been able to find the answer to a question that I have.

First of all I have an old computer with a Nvidia in it which gets about 40M hashes. Before you laugh I am just figuring out how to set stuff up and do not expect this thing to do much but waste power.

My question is this: Is it theoretically possible, even if extremely unlikely, that a setup like this can solve a block? More precisely - is every hash just a random guess and is each guess just as (un)likely to be a correct one?

If the answer is yes then what are the odds of a guess being correct? I have heard things like "at the current difficulty it would take 10,000 years..." But I would like to know "at the current difficulty a hash has the probability of 1 in a billion to be correct". Are the odds worse than, say, Powerball?

Theoretically, that is possible.

What are the odds of winning the lottery with just six numbers?

The odds of solving the block by yourself are

many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many,

times lower.

The odds of winning the Powerball are something around 1 in 176 million which is only slightly better than me guessing your phone number. The odds of a hash solving a block are worse? Do you know what those odds are? I have done a lot of googling and I just get conflicting answers.

I believe it is your hash rate divided by total hash rate.   So if my math is correct it is 0.000000269% per block or 0.000045% percent chance per day.

Which is on average slightly more than once every 10,000 years if difficulty remained constant as of today.  Which it won't.

Suffice to say you should not expect to solve a block solo mining.

The odds are 50/50
You either solve a block or you don't.

Definitely not 50/50, no I doubt anyone can solo mine unless they have the latest ASICs in clusters.

Thanks. I did yet more googling and came up with some links to help answer my question.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=156918.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=156918.0)
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Target (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Target)


The answer to my question is right there in the second link: It's important to realize that block generation is not a long, set problem (like doing a million hashes), but more like a lottery. Each hash basically gives you a random number between 0 and the maximum value of a 256-bit number (which is huge). If your hash is below the target, then you win. If not, you increment the nonce (completely changing the hash) and try again..

My mistake...next time I will remember to turn on my sarcasm font!

It's like winning the lottery. You may solve the block today or tomorrow or next week, or next 100 years.

Anything is possible my friend. Just don't do it please :)

Current Difficulty: 1,789,546,951

Your Hashrate: 40mhs

Average generation time for a block (solo): 6093 years, 26 days

http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/

Your calculation didn't take into account future difficulty increment. So it should be 100000 years...

Yep, sounds about right. Don't even try to solo mine BTC.

just double your hardware 20 times in a row and you'll mine a block every other day

Instead of all these explanations about profitability, I'll just answer: Yes, theoretically you can.

I personally would rather buy a lottery ticket. It's easier.

Good answer, to the point.

Yes, it is possible to mine a block yourself going solo. Every nonce has the same chance of finding a block, its just that the more nonces you can try in any given time increases your attempts at finding a block and therefore the greater chance of finding a block sooner.

It's theoretically possible but statistically unlikely.

Hi how do one solomine?

You just mine not using a pool. There are some good docs on here about how to config ur equipment.  I believe you need to be running a wallet while you mine but that is the only difference.

Yes it is still possible even on a CPU miner. But if you don't mine then it is not possible...

The more hashing power applied to the network, the more invalid hashes are processed, so I think the chances of a solo miner finding a valid hash are higher as difficulty increases. Thoughts?

~Foyz

No ... even with my 12GH/s, i don't have solve a block since it has started.
I push 50% of time on pool and 50% on solo mining (not to find but to help transaction fluidity).

But that just means you haven't been lucky enough to find a block going solo? Doesn't mean you won't be able to.

There's every chance for a new solo miner to switch their HW on and find a block straight away, unlikely, but possible. Just depends on how lucky you are.

I thought about mining solo. Did a lot of research. I am a small time miner and probably will not make my investment back, but it is fun and I decided to go ahead and join a pool. At this late stage in the game for Bitcoin mining, that seems to be the best place. There is no competing with the big dogs with heavy duty mining gear, but the small guy is important too. So find yourself a decent pool and jump in and have some fun and learn something. At least in a pool you will see a little something for your participation. As for making some money, try to buy a Bitcoin once in a while, there is still room for profit.

i solo mine sometimes, and switch to a pool some other times.

i'm more worried about these constant HW errors from my block erupters.  something to worry about?

From what I gather on mining, solo mining is mostly hit and miss. You're much better joining a pool to maximize your potential earnings.

Thank you. That answers the question that I asked.

What if the new 3 KNC Neptunes at 10 TH/s overclocked can find several solo blocks in 3 days?