Solo Mining

[mu50stang]

Im Currently solo mining for 2 days at a 1.5 G.  How long with the currently difficulty take to find a block.  Thanks.

[saqwe]

two months?

http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

[worldinacoin]

Yeap I now have about 1.2 Ghash/s but considered it much easier to mine together as a pool.

[exahash]

two months?

http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

For a question of "how long" you should try the old calculator - http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/old_calculator.php

The average for 1.5 GH/s is 2 months, but 95th% is almost 6 months.  You should probably look into joining a pool.  I like mining.mainframe.nl

[fcmatt]

difficulty will keep changing... probably in the downward direction.. so that is a small positive that
you might find a block.

i pool myself with 2.5 gh/s

[jjiimm_64]

Im Currently solo mining for 2 days at a 1.5 G.  How long with the currently difficulty take to find a block.  Thanks.

When I got up to 15G.  I mined solo for about 8 hours. (would avg a week to find block).  after 8 hours I couldn't take it anymore and went back to the pool for the daily btc's.   

I wanted to get 50 'unused' btc just the hell of it.  you really dont make any/much more solo vs pooling.

JIm

[fluxlite]

well with 2ghps it took me 2.5 months of pool mining before I found a block, by which time I had made much more than 50BTC.

looking purely at statistics and probability (and taking into account the whole ethos of bitcoin being p2p) solo mining always wins over pooled.

[jjiimm_64]

well with 2ghps it took me 2.5 months of pool mining before I found a block, by which time I had made much more than 50BTC.

looking purely at statistics and probability (and taking into account the whole ethos of bitcoin being p2p) solo mining always wins over pooled.

your post does not make sense......  with 2 gig

Probability   Time
Average   43 days, 15 hours, 10 minutes
50%   30 days, 5 hours, 50 minutes
95%   130 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes


which means you have a 95% chance of finding a block within 130 days.......  you could go a year without finding a block.

[infofront]

Pools can have some pretty nasty bad luck streaks. I've seen some last for days and days with 60 Ghash pools. If you had that kind of luck solo mining, you'd be looking at months and months with no found blocks.

[P4man]

looking purely at statistics and probability (and taking into account the whole ethos of bitcoin being p2p) solo mining always wins over pooled.

You sure about that?
Consider on average difficulty would go up slowly. If it takes you several months or even years instead of several hours to find a block wouldnt you on average suffer from a higher difficulty for each? The same concerns when we approach new reward era. 2013 may still seem very  far, but not if you are solo mining on a single videocard it isnt .

Of course, if there is a statistical difference because of that (Im not sure, Im too tired to think it through), its obviously noise compared to the inherent variability you face when mining solo, and just as irrelevant when you compare it to the fluctuations of BTC value (assuming youd cash out regularly).

[Fjordbit]

I take it that solo miners aren't getting a lot in the way of transaction fees.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

You need a pool, but deepbit is a poor choice. Some better alternatives are http://mining.mainframe.nl, http://eclipsemc.com, http://rfcpool.com, http://www.yourbtc.net/ .

looking purely at statistics and probability

Only if you ignore variance, which is a critical statistical attribute.

(and taking into account the whole ethos of bitcoin being p2p)

That may be true now. But it's possible to modify the way pools work to eliminate the concentration of power problem, and hopefully this will be done eventually.

I take it that solo miners aren't getting a lot in the way of transaction fees.

Transaction fees vary but they seem to be around 0.1% of the block reward.

[btcbaby]

Run, don't walk to Deepbit

[PatrickHarnett]

You need a pool, but deepbit is a poor choice. Some better alternatives are http://mining.mainframe.nl, http://eclipsemc.com, http://rfcpool.com, http://www.yourbtc.net/ .

If you like small pools with pplns payouts, maybe (that's what these pools look like on a quick scan).  Not sure of your reasoning against deepbit - reasonable size, proportional payout based on actual work contributed.

As for solo - if you wanted to try, test on one of the alt-coins, that would give better chances.

[tiberiandusk]

The days of solo mining with low Gh/s have gone the way of CPU mining. I found one block solo at the early part of this year but I've been pool mining ever since. I got really lucky with that block though since I found it less than 24 hours after starting solo. I have switched pools many times this year as they have gotten too big or for personal tastes. I'm currently on Mainframe.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

You need a pool, but deepbit is a poor choice. Some better alternatives are http://mining.mainframe.nl, http://eclipsemc.com, http://rfcpool.com, http://www.yourbtc.net/ .

If you like small pools with pplns payouts, maybe (that's what these pools look like on a quick scan).  Not sure of your reasoning against deepbit - reasonable size, proportional payout based on actual work contributed.

Proportional pools are vulnerable to pool-hopping.

[PatrickHarnett]

You need a pool, but deepbit is a poor choice. Some better alternatives are http://mining.mainframe.nl, http://eclipsemc.com, http://rfcpool.com, http://www.yourbtc.net/ .

If you like small pools with pplns payouts, maybe (that's what these pools look like on a quick scan).  Not sure of your reasoning against deepbit - reasonable size, proportional payout based on actual work contributed.

Proportional pools are vulnerable to pool-hopping.

lol - I love that argument, however, it does not alter the rate at which I get coins for the work I do

[PatrickHarnett]

double lol - because of the different methods of reward, some pools give away unequal rewards and some non-hopping miners get less.  I'm not in one of those pools, so I don't suffer.

[SmokeAndMirrors]

In 6 months I've mined about 30 bitcoins total. According to deepbit and slush pool I've mined 3 blocks.

I've lost out on 115 bitcoins assuming I would have struck those blocks if I was solo mining at the time.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

double lol - because of the different methods of reward, some pools give away unequal rewards and some non-hopping miners get less.  I'm not in one of those pools, so I don't suffer.

You are wrong. In proportional pools you get on average less than what you should. In hopping-proof pools you get on average exactly what you should. If you look at your rewards over, say, a month, you'll get more in a hopping-proof pool than in a proportional pool.

You may want to take a look at the analysis paper I'm working on.