would someone describe realistic mining expectations

[pringesgood]

hi, i love pringles... ok

so you can either mine solo, or in a pool right?



so if you mine solo, lets say you keep the mining rig operational for a year, what's the expectation? that you will get 1 block out of all the blocks that year?

doesn't sound sustainable to me... or practical...



so if you mine in a pool, if the pool gets a block, everyone gets a share of the reward right? what's the share look like? .0005 btc?

because that doesn't look very appealing either.

[1715412075]

1715412075

[Stephen Gornick]

so if you mine in a pool, if the pool gets a block, everyone gets a share of the reward right?

Depends on the pool and the payment method.  And the payout is going to be relative to the amount of work performed, so not every miner gets an equal share.  Someone mining with three times the hashing capacity of another gets three times the revenues.

As far as the amount of proceeds from mining that can be expected, that is entirely up to three things:  
1.) The exchange rate at a future point in time.  (That's like on January 1st asking if your investment in AAPL stock will be profitable at the end fo the year.  Nobody knows.)
2.) The difficulty at a future point in time.  (Again, this is unknown.)
3.) The amount of hashing power you are using (and, for calculation, your cost of electricity, and which hardware you have so that the amount of electricity consumption can be estimated).

Given those three, then your returns from mining can be determined.

[pringesgood]

ok also to clear up some confusion

lets say you go solo mining

is it GUARANTEED that you will get a block, and it all depends on how fast / how much you have hashed?

or it is a probability that you are the 'lucky' one to get the block...?

thanks

[greyhawk]

No, it's analogous to a lottery where you have more tickets when you have more hashing power.

[Foxpup]

Assuming a reasonably efficient market, you can expect the returns from mining to be (on average) about equal to the cost of mining (which is mostly just electricity costs). This means that profit margins are razor thin and only the most efficient miners can make a lot of money. Mining is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It is a business, in which you provide security for the Bitcoin network, and get paid based on results. It is a highly competitive business, and if you can't mine as efficiently as your competitors, you won't make a profit. It's as simple as that.

ok also to clear up some confusion

lets say you go solo mining

is it GUARANTEED that you will get a block, and it all depends on how fast / how much you have hashed?

or it is a probability that you are the 'lucky' one to get the block...?

thanks

There are no guarantees with solo mining, it all depends on luck. Every hash you calculate has a (very small) chance of meeting the "target". There is no way to know, apart from actually calculating the hash, whether it will meet the target or not. The more hashes you produce, the better your chances are that one of them will meet the target. This element of chance with solo mining is the whole reason pooled mining exists.