Will these bitcoind settings hamper my solo miner chances?

[9code7]

I'm running bitcoind and solo mining. It's a lottery miner since my hash rate is very low. Still, do these settings lessen my already low chances of finding a block?

maxconnections=50
maxuploadtarget=150

I chose these settings because my bandwidth is somewhat limited but I still would like to run a full node for several reasons.

[1714892373]

1714892373

[1714892373]

1714892373

[nc50lc]

[1] maxconnections=50
[2] maxuploadtarget=150

1. Maximum of 50 peers may not be an issue if you're connected across the globe and not concentrated to a single area.
(since that's quite the average incoming connections)
You can do that by setting multiple addnode=<nodeIP> from different locations, like different blockexplorer's nodes as they are connected to thousands.

2. Read the documentation about "Reducing traffic" (github-Bitcoin), it's indicated that maxuploadtarget only limits blocks older than 1 week, so your newly mined block(s) wont be affected by it.

Care to tell how low is your hashrate? "Lottery" is a relatively low number compared to the current difficulty.
Because if it's too low, your miner might take more than a year even when all the pools/farms stop mining Bitcoin.

[9code7]

Thanks! My hashrate is 1 Gigahash.

[mocacinno]

Thanks! My hashrate is 1 Gigahash.

Your average daily income:
 (((((Hashrate (hashes/sec) * average block reward * 600 * 65535) / 2^48) / Difficulty) * 6 * 24)

Your hashrate: 1000000000
Average block reward: 12.66584503 BTC (including fees)
Difficulty: 15466098935555

Sooooo...
 (((((1000000000 * 12.66584503 * 600 * 65535) / 2^48) / 15466098935555) * 6 * 24) = 1.6 satoshi's per day...

On average, you'll hit a block every 771.951.219 days. That's about once every 2.114.934  (two million) years. So, your odds of "winning" ~$125.000 is about 1 in 771.000.000 (each day). The odds of winning the lottery seem to be about 1 in 300.000.000 (source: https://www.thebalance.com/what-are-the-odds-of-winning-the-lottery-3306232)

If your machine draws ~300 watts of power, and you pay 30 cents/kwh, 1 days of mining will cost you ~$2, it seems a powerball lottery ticket costs ~$2 (source: google), so: it's >2 times more likely to win the powerball lottery than it is to hit a BTC block for you (if you invest in powerball tickets instead of energy).

I must say i'm a complete noob when it comes to gambling, i have no idear what's special about powerball, but it seems a winning ticket is worth multiple millions, while a winning block is only worth ~$125.000, so investment-wise it would be better to buy powerball lottery tickets than it is to mine... Not only are the odds 2 times higher, the potential profit is also astronomically bigger.

[9code7]

lol...I knew my odds were practically zero but it's nice to see the math which proves it. Those odds are lower than I thought. Still, I'm running a full node for several reasons, only one of which is solo mining. My "rig" is 3 block erupters, so the amount of electricity being used exclusively for mining is negligible. I've had the block erupters for years so I thought since I'm running a node I might as well put them to work. 

Now if they do find a block I'll have more appreciation for such an extremely unlikely event

[DaCryptoRaccoon]

The issue with looking at the "probability" of finding a block is what stops people solo mining you also need to remember it's a non-deterministic process every hash your miner creates has equal chance to everyone else's of being a block so you could in theory mine for very little time and find one or take you forever and never find one but what people forget is every hash has the potential to be the solution so it's very hard to say it will take you X=Years to find one.

I wish more people would solo mine and move away from pools I think if bitcoin had gone the route of eveyone was solo mining and not being horded into pool to earn peanuts while the pool's rub there hands and get rich the network would be a much different place today.

If your looking to save some power and time you could always look at CK solo pool gives you the chance to mine solo without having to setup your own node or stratum.

I am also solo mining for many years now without the luck but the math still dose not put me off trying.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

[nc50lc]

The issue with looking at the "probability" of finding a block is what stops people solo mining you also need to remember it's a non-deterministic process every hash your miner creates has equal chance to everyone else's of being a block so you could in theory mine for very little time and find one or take you forever and never find one but what people forget is every hash has the potential to be the solution so it's very hard to say it will take you X=Years to find one.

Mining is business, it needs to profit.
Anyone who's got a single S17 woudn't take chances to mine a block than a steady income from pools.
Unless they do it for research purposes, free energy lottery (OP) or JFF.

It takes a protocol level change to stop "pooling", it could never be persuaded.

[Kuffy]

Mining is business, it needs to profit.

That isn't true. Mining is an operation, and it works even when it doesn't make a profit for the miner. Non profit reasons for mining are self-education, a fun hobby, political motivation, a form of lottery, and a topic to help earn blogging revenue amongst others.

We should be encouraging more small, independent miners, and not telling them to leave it to the large corporations.

[nc50lc]

We should be encouraging more small, independent miners, and not telling them to leave it to the large corporations.

Small miners who 'pool-mine' are technically also a business.
And it's not about discouraging small miners, it's about "pooling vs solo-mining".

In OP's case, I'm just telling the obvious since his hashrate is too low to solo-mine a block even when the whole mining community stop mining.
I can't find any logical reasons how MagicByt3's 1st sentence will work for any small miners who wants to profit with those mining pools around.

That's why I've said (rephrased): You can never encourage majority of the miners to solo mine, it need a protocol change that prohibits pooling to make it happen.

[bob123]

That's why I've said (rephrased): You can never encourage majority of the miners to solo mine, it need a protocol change that prohibits pooling to make it happen.

You can't change the protocol (i guess you are talking about the bitcoin protocol?) in such a way.
There is literally no way for the rest of the network to see whether a block has been mined by a solo miner or by a mining pool other than the optional field in the block including the name of the miner/pool.

Actually you first had to properly define a pool. If i have 2 miner connected, that obviously wouldn't count as a pool?
And if i have multiple hundreds of miners - eventually even spread across the world - would you count that as a pool already ?

There is no proper way to distinguish between someone who owns a lot of mining rigs and a pool.
I mean.. you could theoretically set a maximum H/s limit per entity.. but since there is no control whatsoever, a single person could create multiple identities.


So in summary.. there simply is no way to ban mining pools.