Pool vs Solo?

[Decoded]

I haven't time to do the calculations. Let's say I have exactly 2 TH/S. If I was to mine from now until the total amount of coin's hit 21 mil, what would be more profitable? Solo mining, or pool mining? Pool mining will give me a higher chance of hitting a block, but also a lower payout. Solo is vice versa.

Disregarding clocking, general wear and tear of my miner, and factoring the halvings, rising amount of hashing power on the network, and me staying at 2 TH/S, which one, by the end, would have made me the most?

[Legacy2005]

kind of a hard to compare the 2.

the pool is guaranteed pay based on the pool payout type (pps, pplns). (most pools dont pay block finders any extra)

where as the solo pool is complete luck. you could hit a block 5 minutes into solo mining and be way ahead of the game or never hit one in which case you wasted a lot of money and have 0 to show for it.

depending on what the 2th is from. you could put say 1 th on solo and 1th on pool. or just put both TH on pool and make as many bitcoins you can before the 1/2ing when that 2th will fall off the profit due to new machines (maybe).

[Sharma]

On average, when speaking over such a very long time period, on average solo mining will have at least saved you the pool fee.
However, this is an average. You might be lucky or unlucky, whereas pool mining in a very large pool will cost you the pool fee in order to even out your luck.

[notlist3d]

On average, when speaking over such a very long time period, on average solo mining will have at least saved you the pool fee.
However, this is an average. You might be lucky or unlucky, whereas pool mining in a very large pool will cost you the pool fee in order to even out your luck.

You need a lot more hashing power though for this to be true.  Say you have a S7 and throw it up.... you might save pool fees but chances of hitting a block are pretty much zero.   Even if good luck it is still more like lotto mining at that point.

So I would say you have to have a LOT of gear for solo mining to make sense.  For most joining a pool and getting paid makes more sense.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Theoretically both should produce the same number of coins over that period of time (if and this is a big if) network hash rate stayed the same.  Now because more miners keep getting added to the network resulting in difficulty going up almost constantly miners are going to earn less and less over time.  This is why pooled mining makes sense.  Unless you are lucky and get a block it gets more and more difficult to do so over time.  Here is an example of an S7 today vs with a possible future difficulty.

Code:

The average time to generate a block at 4.7 thps, given difficulty of 166,851,513,282.777191162109, 
is 4 years, 43 weeks, 3 days, 18 hours, 10 minutes, and 48 seconds

The average time to generate a block at 4.7 thps, given difficulty of 200,000,000,000, 
is 5 years, 41 weeks, 3 days, 8 hours, 42 minutes, and 34 seconds

This is an extreme example but as you can see the average time to hit the block keeps going into the future and you may never reach that date. 

Now we are also in a special time with the nearing reward halving.  If you solo mine and don't hit before it happens then your reward will be a lot lower then getting blocks in a pool both before and after it. 

In the end it all comes down to 1 question.  Are you feeling lucky?

[notlist3d]

Theoretically both should produce the same number of coins over that period of time (if and this is a big if) network hash rate stayed the same.  Now because more miners keep getting added to the network resulting in difficulty going up almost constantly miners are going to earn less and less over time.  This is why pooled mining makes sense.  Unless you are lucky and get a block it gets more and more difficult to do so over time.  Here is an example of an S7 today vs with a possible future difficulty.

Code:

The average time to generate a block at 4.7 thps, given difficulty of 166,851,513,282.777191162109, 
is 4 years, 43 weeks, 3 days, 18 hours, 10 minutes, and 48 seconds

The average time to generate a block at 4.7 thps, given difficulty of 200,000,000,000, 
is 5 years, 41 weeks, 3 days, 8 hours, 42 minutes, and 34 seconds

This is an extreme example but as you can see the average time to hit the block keeps going into the future and you may never reach that date. 

Now we are also in a special time with the nearing reward halving.  If you solo mine and don't hit before it happens then your reward will be a lot lower then getting blocks in a pool both before and after it. 

In the end it all comes down to 1 question.  Are you feeling lucky?

Theory is far from truth though.   Even if there was no addition of more miners or hashrate solo mining is a thing of the past for most users.  Even if you had 10 S7's or almost 50T I still would not solo mine.  It's just a horrible idea for most.  I think solo mining is for the big mining corporations at this point.  Yes some might rent and try to do it, but that is still not guarantee.

End comes down to join a pool.  Unless you are wanting to lotto mine, which you are right is more of a "Are you feeling lucky" type of situation.

[Amph]

pool, because the diff keep increase, so unless monstrous luck appear you will not be able to catch any block in solo, if the diff was the same all the time i would have tried solo instead

[Carlsen]

Solo mining won't work (profitable) these days anymore.
Only if you can run your own pool.

[jpucela14]

Solo mining won't work (profitable) these days anymore.
Only if you can run your own pool.

That's right.. really difficult to find a block nowadays

[RichBC]

Well my forecast is that both approaches will loose you money because of the electricity cost. However mining solo will loose you more because you will not hit a block.  


Rich

[philipma1957]

I haven't time to do the calculations. Let's say I have exactly 2 TH/S. If I was to mine from now until the total amount of coin's hit 21 mil, what would be more profitable? Solo mining, or pool mining? Pool mining will give me a higher chance of hitting a block, but also a lower payout. Solo is vice versa.

Disregarding clocking, general wear and tear of my miner, and factoring the halvings, rising amount of hashing power on the network, and me staying at 2 TH/S, which one, by the end, would have made me the most?

I will make conditions since you left them out.

You will be dead by the time we mine the 21 mill coins.
you do not stop mining.
your gear does not break.

I can break down the math but if the ½ ings go as scheduled and btc actually does mine down to  almost 0 coins (it will never get to 0 coins if it continues to mine) All of us will be dead.

So I will make first condition
  12.5         btc   is reward      July 2016    5.25 mill     coins   
    6.25       btc   is reward   Dec 2018    2.625 mill      coins
    3.125     btc    is reward   July 2021    1.3125 mill    coins
    1.5625   btc    is reward    Dec 2023     656,250       coins
      .78125 btc   is reward     July 2026     328,125       coins   I say use this date not the end of coins

Second condition

 free gear and free power =  mine in a pool as you will certainly make a profit while the chances are you will not hit a block

 free gear and pay for power = mine in a pool as long as  you get more coin then the power costs then switch to  solo.   this is an absolute certain way of getting some  coins and you could hit a block once it stops paying a profit to  mine in a pool.

you purchased the gear and have free power.   mine in a pool till the end  you will have some coins and may turn a profit

last  you paid for the gear and you pay for power.

mine in a pool until   the power cost makes you losing money to be int the pool then mine in a solo

you will get some coins and may hit a block.

Notice in no case did I ever say mine solo all the way until you die or btc dies.

If the gear was free and your power is free and you need a space heater you could mine solo.
once it is too hot switch to a pool  you will get heat from the solo mining and may hit a block and you will get some coins when it it warm and you do not need the heat.  (this is a convoluted way of thinking and some will disagree with it)


good luck

[jpucela14]

I haven't time to do the calculations. Let's say I have exactly 2 TH/S. If I was to mine from now until the total amount of coin's hit 21 mil, what would be more profitable? Solo mining, or pool mining? Pool mining will give me a higher chance of hitting a block, but also a lower payout. Solo is vice versa.

Disregarding clocking, general wear and tear of my miner, and factoring the halvings, rising amount of hashing power on the network, and me staying at 2 TH/S, which one, by the end, would have made me the most?

Think about a low difficult alt coin to mine in solo mode... could be profitable, i don't know

[Dahhi]

You are better off with pool mining. I heard 118 TH/s is needed to mine 1 BTC in a day.

[Flippout]

I have 6 - S7's and have won 2 blocks with some pool mining in between.

"height":410375,"hash":"000000000000000006180b6ce488ca2a779ed6ee460363489a04716f5f371c23"
"height":383960,"hash":"000000000000000001f1506aa837ff75b70536209787600028eda329f80d16d0"

Whenever you solo mine the risk goes way up. You could go months with mining a single block, all the while the difficultly continues to go up. At this point I would stick with pool mining with the halving coming up. Over the long run it will always even out.
The first block I won only took 4 days of solo mining, but the second took over 3 months.

[jonnybravo0311]

The answer is pool.

At current difficulty that S7 expects to find a block in 2032.5 days.  By then the block reward will be 6.25 coins.  You missed the remaining 52ish days of 25 coins per block, and the entirety of 12.5 coins per block.  Even if things remained completely unchanged, pool mining would expect to earn you 0.65 coins until first halving.  Then you would expect to earn 8.97 coins until the next halving and then 1.6 more coins until your S7 would finally expect to hit the solo block for 6.25 coins.

[Daisy14]

With the halving coming up now, I will go with pool mining. I recommend adding altcoin mining to btc mining, try eth or litecoin...

[jpucela14]

With the halving coming up now, I will go with pool mining. I recommend adding altcoin mining to btc mining, try eth or litecoin...

Litecoin o ETH as merged mining??