Solo Mining vs Pool Mining ?

[greaterninja]

So my  4 module, Batch #3 unit I have had since August 7th.

It has found 4 blocks on Slush's pool in less than 3 months.  Thats 100BTC vs 47 BTC earned on Slush pool.


I am considering using my Avalon (110 gh/s)  to solo mine and my Bitfury (170gh/s) to Pool mine.


What are you guys thoughts?

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[mgio]

So my  4 module, Batch #3 unit I have had since August 7th.

It has found 4 blocks on Slush's pool in less than 3 months.  Thats 100BTC vs 47 BTC earned on Slush pool.


I am considering using my Avalon (110 gh/s)  to solo mine and my Bitfury (170gh/s) to Pool mine.


What are you guys thoughts?

You are crazy if you are solo mining today with anything less than 25 TH/s.

The variance is going to kill you. You have a very significant chance of losing it all.

[jerelimZ]

What are you guys thoughts?

Good luck 

The difficulty is raising so fast you will be lucky if you find another one solo mining with this. It  is interesting in theory, but not funny when you mine 0 BTC in one month 

[greaterninja]

So my  4 module, Batch #3 unit I have had since August 7th.

It has found 4 blocks on Slush's pool in less than 3 months.  Thats 100BTC vs 47 BTC earned on Slush pool.


I am considering using my Avalon (110 gh/s)  to solo mine and my Bitfury (170gh/s) to Pool mine.


What are you guys thoughts?

You are crazy if you are solo mining today with anything less than 25 TH/s.

The variance is going to kill you. You have a very significant chance of losing it all.

yeah well i just found 2 blocks yesterday on a 110gh/s machine.


The calculators are not very accurate for solo block generation as they cannot predict chance of luck, etc.  My idea is dedicate some hash power to solo mining and some to pool mining.   When solo mining becomes luckier than pool mining i switch to all pool mining and maximize my return.

[pontiacg5]

So my  4 module, Batch #3 unit I have had since August 7th.

It has found 4 blocks on Slush's pool in less than 3 months.  Thats 100BTC vs 47 BTC earned on Slush pool.


I am considering using my Avalon (110 gh/s)  to solo mine and my Bitfury (170gh/s) to Pool mine.


What are you guys thoughts?

You are crazy if you are solo mining today with anything less than 25 TH/s.

The variance is going to kill you. You have a very significant chance of losing it all.

yeah well i just found 2 blocks yesterday on a 110gh/s machine.


The calculators are not very accurate for solo block generation as they cannot predict chance of luck, etc.  My idea is dedicate some hash power to solo mining and some to pool mining.   When solo mining becomes luckier than pool mining i switch to all pool mining and maximize my return.

I highly doubt you found two blocks in one day with 110gh/s.

The calculators work flawlessly, they show you the statistical chance of finding a block on your own solo mining. If you want to ignore that, go right ahead...

[hunnaryb]

 My idea is dedicate some hash power to solo mining and some to pool mining.   When solo mining becomes luckier than pool mining i switch to all pool mining and maximize my return.

Luck does not have memory. When solo mining becomes luckier, it doesnt mean your more likely to be unlucky in future 

[greaterninja]

So my  4 module, Batch #3 unit I have had since August 7th.

It has found 4 blocks on Slush's pool in less than 3 months.  Thats 100BTC vs 47 BTC earned on Slush pool.


I am considering using my Avalon (110 gh/s)  to solo mine and my Bitfury (170gh/s) to Pool mine.


What are you guys thoughts?

You are crazy if you are solo mining today with anything less than 25 TH/s.

The variance is going to kill you. You have a very significant chance of losing it all.

yeah well i just found 2 blocks yesterday on a 110gh/s machine.


The calculators are not very accurate for solo block generation as they cannot predict chance of luck, etc.  My idea is dedicate some hash power to solo mining and some to pool mining.   When solo mining becomes luckier than pool mining i switch to all pool mining and maximize my return.

I highly doubt you found two blocks in one day with 110gh/s.

The calculators work flawlessly, they show you the statistical chance of finding a block on your own solo mining. If you want to ignore that, go right ahead...

Ok you are correct, its not 1 day. its 2 blocks in a little over 2 days.  Oct 24th and Oct 26th.  The point is 4 blocks in under 3 months.   This could have been 100 btc versus 47 btc.   My results and other's results indicate that the average time to generate a block solo mining is not accurate on the mining calculators.

[Trongersoll]

Something to think about: The input used to find those blocks would never have been used if you were solo mining.

[pontiacg5]

I still say no way, not in any recent two days.

Do you understand statistics at all? If you know how bitcoin works, and you know statistics than you wouldn't say the calculator is wrong.

You would be gambling solo mining. Don't fall for gambler's fallacy.

[greaterninja]

I still say no way, not in any recent two days.

Do you understand statistics at all? If you know how bitcoin works, and you know statistics than you wouldn't say the calculator is wrong.

You would be gambling solo mining. Don't fall for gambler's fallacy.

Yes in recent two days I have found those blocks...look those block #s up in the block chain.  That will give you timestamps of when the blocks were found and by whom.

As far as statistics I have a degree in Mathematics so I probably understand Statistics much more than you ever will learn.


The calculator is using extrapolation.  Extrapolation is inaccurate the further you go out.  If you knew statistics you would know this.  This doesn't even account for sample size.

[xstr8guy]

In a month or two, solo mining/gambling will be way better than the .0001 BTC/day that 280GH/s will earn, lol.

[greaterninja]

In a month or two, solo mining/gambling will be way better than the .0001 BTC/day that 280GH/s will earn, lol.

I agree with this assessment as well.  It will be better to roll the dice on some or all assets in a few months from now unless one has free electricity to run mining equipment.  Right now I think its better to diversify the risk (hashrate).

[rocks]

IMHO solo-mining is only worthwhile if you except to mine on average at least 1 block per 6-12 months. Anything beyond that and the variance is so high that you might mine for years without a block, the problem with this is you have no idea if it is due to bad luck or a setup issue.

I feel for your luck. I first discovered bitcoin and tried mining in Jan 2012. I CPU mined (with a laptop CPU) for 12 hours and found a block, but my payout was less than 0.0001 BTC due to the very low hash rate. How is that for crazy high luck. Then in 2012 with 1 GPU mining card I found 4 more blocks, but recieved significantly less in payout.

It just goes to show how high the variance can be, and there is a long tail of probability with zero payout.

I think solo mining is more for the fun of it, but make sure you have enough hashrate to make it worthwhile. With the expected difficulty increases I think you are below the limit...

[Soros Shorts]

In a month or two, solo mining/gambling will be way better than the .0001 BTC/day that 280GH/s will earn, lol.

I agree with this assessment as well.  It will be better to roll the dice on some or all assets in a few months from now unless one has free electricity to run mining equipment.  Right now I think its better to diversify the risk (hashrate).

That's like saying saving $2/week will never add up to anything so you might as well spend the money on the NY Lotto.

[xstr8guy]

In a month or two, solo mining/gambling will be way better than the .0001 BTC/day that 280GH/s will earn, lol.

I agree with this assessment as well.  It will be better to roll the dice on some or all assets in a few months from now unless one has free electricity to run mining equipment.  Right now I think its better to diversify the risk (hashrate).

That's like saying saving $2/week will never add up to anything so you might as well spend the money on the NY Lotto.

That's EXACTLY what I was saying!   

[Bogart]

the problem with this is you have no idea if it is due to bad luck or a setup issue.

This.

Unless you are confident in your software setup, and have monitoring in place to ensure that everything is working correctly, and that you will know if it's not, the risk of mining for days/weeks/longer on a broken or underperforming setup outweighs any disadvantages you may encounter mining on a pool.

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[BBQKorv]

 My idea is dedicate some hash power to solo mining and some to pool mining.   When solo mining becomes luckier than pool mining i switch to all pool mining and maximize my return.

Luck does not have memory. When solo mining becomes luckier, it doesnt mean your more likely to be unlucky in future 

Luck doesn't have memory but it sure follows statistical average. Lucky rounds will be followed by unlucky ones to bring the earnings back to normal, average level. We are playing with average numbers here, observing only a day or two of data is not enough to make any conclusions.

[mgio]

 My idea is dedicate some hash power to solo mining and some to pool mining.   When solo mining becomes luckier than pool mining i switch to all pool mining and maximize my return.

Luck does not have memory. When solo mining becomes luckier, it doesnt mean your more likely to be unlucky in future 

Luck doesn't have memory but it sure follows statistical average. Lucky rounds will be followed by unlucky ones to bring the earnings back to normal, average level. We are playing with average numbers here, observing only a day or two of data is not enough to make any conclusions.

So not true at all!!

[mgio]

The problem with something like mining that follows a poisson distribution is that it has an infinitely long tail.

There is no point where you have a greater chance to find a block. The chance is always the same.

Let's say you expect to find a block after an hour on average (50/50 chance). After an hour you haven't found a block. What is your chance you'll find a block the next hour? Still 50/50.

Now let's say it's been 24 hours and you were really unlucky and haven't found a block. What's the chance you'll find a block in the 25th hour? Still 50/50.


It's like flipping a coin. Very long strings of heads (and tails) WILL occur and in fact occur quite frequently. If you are solo-mining and your average block mine rate is greater than a couple days, you run a great risk of losing as it is very common for you to have long periods that last many times longer than your average mine rate where you get nothing. And with difficulty rising fast you have no chance of making that back.

[Bogart]

Old topic is old.

Ppl have been having this same discussion since pools first came into existence.