Bitcoin Forum

So I got bored one day and dug out my old Rockminer r-box (the old 36Gh/s one) and my 3 Antminer U2s, running at around 2Gh/s each.  I set up a Bitcoin node on my Raspberry Pi and along with CGMiner, I now have them solo mining just for the fun of it.  I'm sure I won't find anything but it's mostly just for fun.  If I get bored I might throw them up on a rental site like betarigs or something.  Is anyone else solo mining with similar or even much better hardware?  I have an S1 and 2 S3s running on a pool, I'm not willing to take those down to play the lottery.

no but i would have tried with let's say 7 tera of a total hashrate which would produce 1 block in one year

and since it has been one year of an almost steady diff(in comparison with the old big jump that at which we were accustomed), maybe with some luck it would have been possible to find a block

With my electricity price I just can't take the risk.  I wish I was able to try solo.  But it's pretty expensive to cover 10k+ watts of gear and fan's for summer.

I think the most successful way to do it was the groups that did massive rentals before forums were hacked.  I would not mind seeing that happen again and I would think about trying the rental solo.

I solo mine on ck.'s solo pool.  I've got 5 U2s constantly pointing there.  I point my S3s there every now and then.  I was part of a few groups that pooled our resources together to rent some decent hash power and point it there.  I've never found anything on my own, but the group I was with found a couple blocks and with my share, made back what I invested in the rentals.

there is no reason to solo mine tbh... It's just Coal which has to be burned to produce the electricity in the end..

Sell the miner and buy several lotto tickets from the money. The Odds wining something reasonable there are higher...

Well... that's not entirely true.  Let's assume you've got a single S3 solo mining.  Your chances of hitting a block are about 1:5907.  Chances of winning $10,000 in the powerball are about 1:648976.  Whereas that powerball ticket is only good for a single drawing, your miner is good until you turn it off.  Let's say you've got 5 U2s like I do... the chance of hitting a block is about 1:259875.  Still better odds than hitting that $10,000 in the powerball.  And, once it hits, it can hit again.  That lottery ticket is a one-shot deal.

Now compare the price of the ticket with the cost of electricity needed.

I do like the idea of solo mining. Something almost romantic about it now ;D

Running an S3 at default will only cost you about $0.82 a day with $0.10 per kWh.  My 5 little U2s running with an rPi controller costs virtually nothing (about $0.04 a day).

There are 185 separate users mining on my solo mining service averaging ~1PH in total.

I think I'll have to do that, I'm about to run out of space on my RaspBerry Pi since the wallet is so big. 

I see reason in it.  For one, it's a fun project.  Two, there is a chance, no matter how small.  There's also that accomplishment that would feel awesome in the end.  How many people can say they mined a block solo at this difficulty?  (Besides those warehouses full of miners, they don't count haha)

Should be 186 now, thanks for making your service, it's pretty cool.

I solo mine 1 day a week... I may switch it out to 4 days in a row per month

I'd do that but I don't think I can set my hardware to do that automatically.  I'd end up forgetting.  Although maybe with cronjobs or something...

it look even more pointless than solo mining for a long time, basically that day will be always waste, unless you have a non really bad hashrate

I solo mine on ck.'s solo pool.  I've got 1 S2 constantly pointing there.  ;)

And it's not "just for fun", I know there IS a chance to find a block, so why not?  :)

I've been mining on CK's pool with my own hash for over a month. Hit on 6/27 and 7/7 and never got above a 33G share since, also hit two other times before. It's been a long dry spell since the last block and having nothing to show for mining 20 days hurts. But as CK stated when he started the pool " it takes balls of steel". :P

I stopped mining months back due to cost and energy being used and not even paying for energy was a big waste. I will in the future buy providing coin value is good and mining equipment is also cheap and has a power of 5TB or more that we are all closing in on.

I have sidehack's 8gb usb stick coming (got two 56 bucks with shipping). If I paid nothing and electric is free I likely on both will make a whole $22 bucks in a Year according to
www.tradeblock.com at current prices and 0% pool fee lol :)

but hey if it keeps me happy (along with a bitcoin node from bitseed v2 device) I can feel like I'm still 'contributing' and not buy any more home miners. We all deal with the 'death'
of home asic mining in our own way :) (The shiny lights being able to 'putty.exe' into something just becasuse.....to hide the pain of my dead asic doorstops :(

I suppose I could solo mine (I mean Lucy Liu is into bitcoin I hear so the odds of me hooking up and talking to her about bitcoin are about the same as solo mining more or less imho)

yeah thats the ticket ..hit a block with my 2 8gb usb sticks by solo mining them.........dare to dream :) (my life is lame.....the death of home mining is gonna hit me hard) :(

Very infeasible to solo mine unless you have a large farm. If you have a few pieces of small equipment that won't get a profit anyways, you could solo mine (its like a lottery) with them in hopes of hitting a block.

I think lotto mining is a proper way to describe it for most.   It just takes a LOT of hash to get a block.  It's possible to rent a lot of hash so.... yes some might do it.

For most like me being a hobby miner electricity makes it where I need to pool mine.  Solo mining just cant be done for most.

I give credit to the people that solo mine, it takes a little bit of guts to give up guaranteed BTC for a chance to get a lot of BTC.