NERDMINER: Bitcoin lottery miners

[fillippone]

What is this thing?

Topics:

• 1. Disclaimer
• 2. What is NerdMiner
• 3. Why it is relevant
• 4. How do I get a NerdMiner
• 5. NerdMiner Setup
• 6. Community
• 7. Resources
• 8. Other projects

1. Disclaimer

Before even starting to read this thread, read carefully the following statement:

VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

This is a non-profit project. That is a no profit for the user. With such a setup, you won't probably mine a single satoshi in your lifetime. This is NOT for economic profit. The total loss of monetary funds invested in this project is almost inevitable.

2. What is NerdMiner

NerdMiner is a project that originated from Valerio Vaccaro's idea of HanSolo mining.
Valerio is the ideator of "Satoshi Spritz", a format for informal local meetups of bitcoiners that is now spread all over Italy in more than 20 instances.
During these meetups, typically held in Bitcoin-friendly pubs, Valerio presented some gadgetry: Bitcoin nodes, LN nodes, and LN ATMs, but a proper mining device was missing. So, he decided to close that gap and started coding. He used some commodity programmable board and assembled the very first instance of his portable mining device. As he is, of course, an übernerd, he dubbed his device HanSolo Miner.
That was essential software with an uncanny graphical interface and limited features.

Bitmaker discovered the project and, in the spirit of pure Open-Source Software, forked it, rebranded NerdMiner, and added a friendly graphical interface and a few more features.

NerdMiner can run on a variety of boards, but the most common one is the Lilygo S3:



The following is the full list of boards capable of running firmware 1.61.

• -- LILYGO T-Display S3
• -- ESP32-WROOM-32, ESP32-Devkit1..
• -- LILYGO T-QT
• -- LILYGO T-Display 1.14
• -- LILYGO T-Display S3 AMOLED
• -- LILYGO T-Dongle S3
• -- ESP32-2432S028R 2,8"

The latest release of the firmware added support to other boards, and many more are coming.


This board has a power consumption of less than 2W, meaning that you can power it for a whole year for way less than 5 EUR.
With the latest firmware, the total hash power of this device is 55Kh/s maximum (peak value, not sustained).
This means that the NerdMiner has an efficiency ratio of 36,360 J/GHs. An S19 XP Hydro has an efficiency of 0.021J/GHs. The NerdMiner is 1,500,000 times less efficient than a S19 miner.


Once online, this is the Pool where the NerdMiners connect to:
https://web.public-pool.io/#/



Many pools would reject NerdMiners or similar low hash power devices because of the too-low hash rate. Publicpool will accept even the smallest mining machine without any fees. Only miners above 50 TH/s will incur in a 1.5% mining pool.

Please note that the 4,500 NerdMiners have a hash power 10^-10 times of a single Antminer. This means that it would take 2,750,000,000 S3 NerdMiners to make a single S19. Imagine giving every person on planet Earth 1 NerdMiner: this would equal hash power to just three S19.
Remember that the Bitcoin network is currently powered by 2.5 million equivalent of those machines. This means that a single S19 is expected to mine a block a block every 46 years.

If 2,500,000 S19 are able to find a block every 10 minutes on average, a single S3 NerdMiner will take 125,570,776,256 years (basically 10 times the age of the universe) to find a block.
This should persuade you that you won't mine anything during your lifetime with this setup.

If you want to further deep-dive into this, I suggest you to read the following link:
 
Bitcoin – Are NerdMiner and BitAxe profitable?

In addition to that, I worked on an Excel spreadsheet:



3. Why it is relevant

Why all this fuss if the prospected earning is null? Why lose money and time if the Pool won't mine a block in our entire lifetime?
Well, the reason is twofold:

Learning
Bitcoin mining is a capital-intensive, ultra-competitive industry. Many users wouldn't consider participating in this part of the Bitcoin protocol.
With NerdMiner, you can mine in production with a little initial and running cost. This will allow you to deal with the actual and fundamental dynamics of mining: running the hardware, managing the pools, interacting with mining protocols, etc. The learning curve is steep, but this device can allow you to practically learn something that would otherwise be extremely difficult.
In addition to that you will learn something about the basic mining operations, temperature management, compiling firmwares etc.
In this project Learning something new vastly overcomes the financial aspect of the whole project.

Bitcoin canary in the mine
Bitcoin is an open-source and distributed technology. As long as every user can run the network's primary function in an open-source, affordable manner, the assumptions of the Bitcoin technology will be maintained valid.  

	My personal DIY setup for basic Bitcoin Protocol Functions (credit card for reference)

Now, you can run a full Bitcoin node with a few hundred dollars of hardware value, a Bitcoin miner with 50 dollars, and secure your private keys with a DIY hardware wallet for 15 dollars.
With your Bitcoin node, you will be able to validate the blockchain and transactions; with a mining node, you can add a block to the blockchain; and with a hardware wallet, you can sign a new transaction securely. All this with open-source software and, in some cases, open-source hardware.

Of course, you don't have all the bells and whistles of commercial solutions, or in the case of the mining hardware, you won't have any real chance of competing for the block. Still, the important thing is that you are doing the exact computation of a professional miner.
Your small NerdMiner is playing on a statistically levelled play with the most advanced miners. Only the incredible capital they put into this competitive industry grants them an advantage, as the PoW dictates, not a technical protocol advantage over your hardware.
The network's decentralisation will be granted as long as simple users can perform all the required protocol functions, a mining device, a Bitcoin node and a hardware wallet, all through open-source projects with limited financial and technical effort. This is of utmost importance for the Bitcoin protocol to succeed.

4. How Do I Get a NerdMiner

I will quote Valerio Vaccaro's post here.
You have three options.

1	DIY	Buying all the pieces on ALI, flashing the device and solving the (few) issues that it implies. You will have fun, learn something and save some money.
2	Official NerdMiner Website	You will support the developers of NerdMiners, helping them to improve their work with new releases, with increased usability and new functionalities.
3	Getting in contact with other bitcoiners and having fun together	Meeting other bitcoiners IRL at local meetups, buying their NerdMiners, sustaining the local community and exchanging knowledge. This is how the virus spread in Italy.

5. NerdMiner Setup

Setting up a NerdMiner is really simple.
Actually, you have at least a couple of methods, the easy way, and the "hardcore" way. It' 's up to you, your time, and your technical capabilities to decide which one to go.
I went the easy way, and I must say it was really simple.

The process is described step by step on this NerdMiner website:

NerdMiner Setup Guide

Once I get the easy way, I am intended to start playing with the software, to get some tricks.

Basically, you have to:

• Connect the Nerminer to a USB port of your PC
• Connect to the the website https://bitmaker-hub.github.io/diyflasher/ to flash your device
  
• Click a button to flash the NerdMiner
  
• Connect to your NerdMiner via Wi-FI (connect to NerdMinerAP with your mobile, just as per instruction on screen
• Set up the Wi-Fi credentials and a Bitcoin address where to deposit your satoshi (just in case).
   

Very easy.

When your NerdMiner is connected, you can connect to the pool and monitor its functioning.
Just open a browser and reach: https://web.public-pool.io/#/app/YournerminerBitcoinaddress to monitor it.

	Here you can control the mining stats of your NerdMiner(s) connected to the pool.

There are also a few physical buttons to monitor the status of your NerdMiner:



6. Community

NerdMiner has a thriving community.
Everything centres around the Telegram channel, where a nice community of enthusiasts has developed a few fun ideas:









You are invited to join this crazy community!

7. Resources

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
https://bitronics.store/nerdminer/	Official NerdMiner Website
https://twitter.com/BitMaker_	Twitter Handle of Bitmaker, the creator of NerdMiners
https://t.me/teamNerdMiner	Official Telegram Group
Micro $3 Bitcoin miners won't make bank, but that's not the point — Inventors	BitMaker's interview on Cointelegraph.
In-depth explanation of Bitcoin Mining Difficulty	A primer on Bitcoin difficulty. Many concepts used in mining are clearly explained on this page.

8. Other projects

NerdMiner is not the only open-source mining project. There are other projects going beyond that. Some of them are even trying to develop a (sort of) open-source hardware.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Han Solo Mining	Where all this started. Valerio Vaccaro is still developing HanSolo miners. He is adding support to new boards and improving the current software. All this work might eventually be merged in the NerdMiner code.
BitAxe	An open-source software on a (quasi) open-source hardware. The smallest ever ASICs made of a single Antminer S17 chip. Mining 520 GH/s on a 10W consumption. Here you have a Telegram Group. This project also has a thread on the forum: Open Source Bitcoin ASIC miner project that uses 2x BM1387 (Antminer S9).
CPUMiner-Android	An Android application wrapper for Pooler's CPUMiner. Ubiquotous mining with your old Android phone.

VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

This is a non-profit project. That is a no profit for the user. With such a setup, you probably won't mine a single satoshi in your lifetime. This is NOT for economic profit. The total loss of monetary funds invested in this project is almost inevitable.

[MusaMohamed]

I know it is a lottery ticket with costly initial spending than simply buying a lottery ticket. I wonder more that why Nerdminers don't simply do solo mining because if they get superb luckiness, find a Bitcoin block, they can enjoy all the block reward, 6.25 BTC. Joining a mining pool and with their super small hashrate, they will not receive much rewards proportionally. The odds is not to compete with other miners with bigger hash rate but how to solve Bitcoin puzzle with very less powerful hash rate and face with very high difficulty on the Bitcoin network.

According to this article [1], Nerdminer is about 10 million times less powerful than BitAxe miner.

Bitcoin – Are Nerdminer and BitAxe profitable?

[fillippone]

I know it is a lottery ticket with costly initial spending than simply buying a lottery ticket. I wonder more that why Nerdminers don't simply do solo mining because if they get superb luckiness, find a Bitcoin block, they can enjoy all the block reward, 6.25 BTC. Joining a mining pool and with their super small hashrate, they will not receive much rewards proportionally. The odds is not to compete with other miners with bigger hash rate but how to solve Bitcoin puzzle with very less powerful hash rate and face with very high difficulty on the Bitcoin network.

This is not how public pool works.
You get the whole coin if you mine. And basically you get nothing if other in the pool mine something:

Pleb mining (under 50TH/s miners) mine with NO FEES
Miners with > 50TH/s will incur a 1.5% fee, a portion of which will go back into open source Bitcoin mining

According to this article [1], Nerdminer is about 10 million times less powerful than BitAxe miner.
Bitcoin – Are Nerdminer and BitAxe profitable?

Thank you for this reference. I will add it to the OP.

[Phu Juck]

Wow, interesting, is it an innovation from Italy?

I'm not Nerd and also not Miner at all but for professionals, it seems to be an really interesting opportunity to do research about mining and it's no need to organize an expencive miner from China to study it because your described veariant is all meant to address it if a professional wants to do a research or a study. Maybe your topic will have better audience in experts section of Bitcointalk like "Development & Technical Discussion".
For an innovation viewpoint, it's an attractive consideration even when it's not economically intended to generate much coin. But if I understand your post correctly, it is not intended to engage in profit, just educational and innovalive purpose, while BitAxe is intended to generate a profit of mined coin?

[fillippone]

Wow, interesting, is it an innovation from Italy?

I'm not Nerd and also not Miner at all but for professionals, it seems to be an really interesting opportunity to do research about mining and it's no need to organize an expencive miner from China to study it because your described veariant is all meant to address it if a professional wants to do a research or a study. Maybe your topic will have better audience in experts section of Bitcointalk like "Development & Technical Discussion".
For an innovation viewpoint, it's an attractive consideration even when it's not economically intended to generate much coin. But if I understand your post correctly, it is not intended to engage in profit, just educational and innovalive purpose, while BitAxe is intended to generate a profit of mined coin?

Thanks for the suggestion.
I will abide to moderators about the more correct board where to post this.

Regarding profitability, you are right, Nerdminer is not profitable, and all the "profit" comes from the knowledge, not the sats.

I will add some excel computation later.

Also bitaxe is not profitable, as it is orders or magnitude less efficient than a modern ASICs.
The only relevant difference is that the chip is an actual ASIC, not a generic chip as for the S3

[Phu Juck]

Also bitaxe is not profitable, as it is orders or magnitude less efficient than a modern ASICs.
The only relevant difference is that the chip is an actual ASIC, not a generic chip as for the S3

Okay it is nice to have your confirmation and to know it is not profitable.
Because I was confused, when it says here it is for profitability by calling it efficient and competitive:

Also, it says "democratize Bitcoin mining" but it doesn't democratize Bitcoin mining at all because it's a marketing lie from BitAxe because it won't be bought by a large number of people to create hashpower due to lack of profitability?

[fillippone]

I added a small spreadsheet on the OP.
Clicking on that you can have a real time overview of how your nerdminer compares to the total hashpower, with associated silly statistics on how many times the universe-age period you have to wait to mine a block!

[dkbit98]

Interesting little project that it's relative easy to make it, I know LILYGO T-Display is dirt cheap to buy and it's widely available on internet.
Code for nerdminer is open source and that is great, but I think this would be useful only if I had time machine to get back in past and actually mine some BTC
 

[fillippone]

Interesting little project that it's relative easy to make it, I know LILYGO T-Display is dirt cheap to buy and it's widely available on internet.
Code for nerdminer is open source and that is great, but I think this would be useful only if I had time machine to get back in past and actually mine some BTC
 

Mixed feelings about this.
Of course, going back to 2010, when these devices could have been used to mine some bitcoin would be extremely useful, with or without a nerdminer.
But also, for the twofold reason I explained in the OP, these are useful gadgetry for at least the couple of reasons I outliner there.

[ABCbits]

While it's fun project, i find it's a shame ASIC chip isn't used in any way. By ASIC chip, i mean something like BM1387 (which used on Antminer S17 and GekkoScience Compac F). Although on bright side, they can promote their device to altcoin (which can be mined with CPU) community such as Monero.

Once online, this is the Pool where the Nerdminers connect to:
https://web.public-pool.io/#/

I didn't know there are other Bitcoin solo pool besides solo ckpool. Do you know how reliable is it compared with solo ckpool?

Han Solo Mining

Where all this started. Valerio Vaccaro is still developing HanSolo miners. He is adding support to new boards and improving the current software. All this work might eventually be merged in the nerdminer code.

You forget to include actual link for Han Solo Mining.

[fillippone]

While it's fun project, i find it's a shame ASIC chip isn't used in any way. By ASIC chip, i mean something like BM1387 (which used on Antminer S17 and GekkoScience Compac F).

For this, you can go to the Bitaxe project, who uses exactly that chip, or the S19’s chip in the Ultra version.
All the references are in OP.

I didn't know there are other Bitcoin solo pool besides solo ckpool. Do you know how reliable is it compared with solo ckpool?

Sincerely, I have no idea. I guess the pool hasn’t mined a single bitcoin so far.
But I think you can join other pools as well.

You forget to include actual link for Han Solo Mining.

That has been fixed, thanks.

[MusaMohamed]

I didn't know there are other Bitcoin solo pool besides solo ckpool. Do you know how reliable is it compared with solo ckpool?

Some articles with reported found blocks by Solo mining pool ckpool.

Yet another solo Bitcoin miner solved a valid block, earning a reward worth over $220,000
Solo Bitcoin miner defies odds to mine valid BTC block, gets $150K block reward
Another Lucky Solo Miner Nabs $160,000 Bitcoin Block Reward

Solo CK pool's miners found 3 blocks according to three articles since 2022, maybe more I don't know but I see this information is very confusing.

Mining a valid BTC block solo is so rare that the event has occurred only 270 times out of the 700,000 blocks produced in the last 13 years.

I understand it is super rarely nowadays for a solo miner to find a Bitcoin block but how about early blocks of Bitcoin blockchain?

270 times in all 13 years of Bitcoin blockchain history is a very low figure.

Finding more, the figure is like for SoloCK pool only, not for all solo miners.

You Can Mine Bitcoin From Your Pocket for Less Than $400

The chances of actually winning a Bitcoin block reward from a single rig is about one in 1.1 billion, according to one estimate. Hence the comparison to a lotto draw. SoloCK miners have snagged six blocks over the past six months and 257 over the past eight years.

List of blocks found by Solo CK pool miners. They found a first block in 2014 at the block #321919. Most of found blocks are before 2017.

Sincerely, I have no idea. I guess the pool hasn’t mined a single bitcoin so far.

Likely that pool has yet mined any Bitcoin block so far. There are 99 mining pools in this list, SoloCK is there but HAN is not.

[ImThour]

What a great post fillippone, I like the idea of this type of miner. I have seen the USB miners which are very compact and serve the purpose however this miner does two things with one.
I just checked on the website, fully assembled with a default black fan costs 56 € and the best part is it's power consumption. costing you only 2$ a year to have it powered, can give anyone a sense of mining without actually being heavily invested or taking care of big machinery in their small sized apartments.

[fillippone]

If you are still undecided, this is the definitive comparison chart:



Now you officially have no reason not to buy a nerdminer!
Just for the lols, guys.

[SFR10]

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/09/16/6Ij1T.jpeg
~Snipped~
Withe the latest firmware, the total hashpower of this device is 55Kh/s maximum (peak value, not sustained).

Have you tried pairing it with one of those tiny fans to see if the airflow improvement would be good enough to deal with the thermal throttling so it could sustain that hashrate?

The following is the full list of boards capable of running 1.61.

And "1.6.2" as well

There are 99 mining pools in this list, SoloCK is there but HAN is not.

Refer to "this" part.

[MusaMohamed]

Refer to "this" part.

I saw the image from HAN solo miner yesterday and see Solo CK pool there. I felt strange but did not read the part you helped me to notice. Thank you.

Thanks for the articles, although i'm already aware of that. But what i actually asked was technical comparison such as uptime, latency and block propagation speed. Although it's hard to compare block propagation speed between two pool.

Block propagation speed, do you imply about this?

SoloCk pool information. If you click on Backward arrow, you will see a diagram (I don't know what it is called exactly) for blocks found by Solo CK pool in previous years. It looks like coding activities from coders on Github.

Under that diagram, you have a list of all blocks found by Solo CK pool.

Height

803,821
795,268
793,607
790,958
782,867
782,845
780,525
780,112
777,942
772,793
752,868
733,739
721,575
721,310
720,175
718,379
718,124
712,217
706,369
689,382
660,588
632,928
621,073
618,616
600,292
566,324
533,171
528,266
517,871
503,670
500,433
497,143
495,939
489,739
486,481
484,634
483,272
481,738
479,926
477,392
476,641
470,010
464,144
460,488
459,083
453,586
453,478
450,328
447,476
445,852
445,700
445,574
445,453
445,184
445,130
439,843
438,480
437,423
437,179
437,084
436,237
435,522
435,447
434,586
434,122
434,068
433,676
433,648
432,875
432,831
432,676
432,410
432,266
432,229
431,750
430,218
430,118
429,912
429,853
429,098
428,055
425,402
425,293
424,265
423,935
422,592
420,960
420,845
420,115
416,798
416,419
414,214
413,847
411,709
411,682
410,586
409,719
408,810
408,758
407,987
407,691
407,492
404,180
402,584
401,934
401,896
401,746
401,604
401,205
401,092
400,982
400,770
400,767
400,331
400,030
399,709
398,047
396,990
396,941
395,783
395,087
394,946
394,940
394,871
394,522
393,904
392,434
392,242
391,994
391,878
390,217
390,122
389,685
388,950
388,744
388,677
388,540
388,533
387,943
387,759
387,490
387,235
386,774
386,226
385,691
385,022
384,882
384,213
384,054
383,693
383,489
382,903
382,610
382,552
382,305
382,279
382,115
381,894
381,860
381,610
381,311
381,286
380,269
379,709
379,339
379,035
378,944
378,765
378,328
377,713
377,550
376,878
376,717
376,196
374,057
373,891
373,814
373,703
373,647
373,334
373,146
373,137
372,974
372,935
372,306
371,637
369,506
369,164
369,083
369,030
368,725
368,152
368,108
367,990
367,231
367,073
367,056
366,796
365,342
364,927
364,822
364,695
364,037
363,679
362,799
362,389
361,346
360,687
360,325
359,823
359,502
359,100
358,774
358,682
358,109
357,922
357,904
357,840
357,759
357,513
357,271
357,041
357,022
356,928
356,912
356,675
356,546
356,287
356,223
356,026
355,517
354,990
354,905
354,267
354,133
353,879
353,759
352,532
352,484
352,163
352,002
351,709
351,364
349,946
349,800
346,340
344,466
342,725
341,702
341,566
339,391
339,021
338,663
338,629
338,121
337,531
336,004
333,844
332,878
326,617
321,919

[LoyceV]

This is a non-profit project. That is a no profit for the user. With such a setup, you won't probably mine a single satoshi in your lifetime. This is NOT for economic profit. The total loss of monetary funds invested in this project is almost inevitable.
~
The nerdminer is 1,500,000 times less efficient than a miner.

What would it take to add a small ASIC miner into this? Would it be possible to take 1/1000th of the chips of an ASIC miner, and instead of 3500W run at 5W (a bit more per hash but still small enough to run off USB power)? It would be great for decentralization to have millions of people do some mining, but I guess the market isn't big enough to make production economically viable. You'd have to produce many millions of them to get the price low enough to sell them, and still they'd have to compete against millions of ASIC miners that are a thousand times more powerful.
I'd like it though! It would still be not for profit, but at least there would be some chance to find a block.

i find it's a shame ASIC chip isn't used in any way.

It really sucks that laws of scale made miners so large, power hungry and loud to be efficient.

[fillippone]

This is a non-profit project. That is a no profit for the user. With such a setup, you won't probably mine a single satoshi in your lifetime. This is NOT for economic profit. The total loss of monetary funds invested in this project is almost inevitable.
~
The nerdminer is 1,500,000 times less efficient than a miner.

What would it take to add a small ASIC miner into this? Would it be possible to take 1/1000th of the chips of an ASIC miner, and instead of 3500W run at 5W (a bit more per hash but still small enough to run off USB power)? It would be great for decentralization to have millions of people do some mining, but I guess the market isn't big enough to make production economically viable. You'd have to produce many millions of them to get the price low enough to sell them, and still they'd have to compete against millions of ASIC miners that are a thousand times more powerful.
I'd like it though! It would still be not for profit, but at least there would be some chance to find a block.

i find it's a shame ASIC chip isn't used in any way.

It really sucks that laws of scale made miners so large, power hungry and loud to be efficient.

This is exactely the Bitaxe project I described in the OP.
It’s a 300nthish of a S17 or of a S19, depending on the version.
It utilises a single instance of the very same ASICS chip instead of the roughly 300 you can find on an industrial miner.

As you are the second one asking this, I probably didn’t put enough emphasis on this in the OP. I am going to fix it soon.

[LoyceV]

This is exactely the Bitaxe project I described in the OP.

I didn't check the link before. I did just now: $95 for 1/330th of the power of an ASIC miner. That's 1/41th of the price.
It would need to cost about $15-20 to be worth it.

[fillippone]

This is exactely the Bitaxe project I described in the OP.

I didn't check the link before. I did just now: $95 for 1/330th of the power of an ASIC miner. That's 1/41th of the price.
It would need to cost about $15-20 to be worth it.

Mining efficiency is the same at chip level. Of course having 300 chip together make the machine more efficient, and for this reason industrial miners are built with so many chips.

Bitaxe cost is outrageous, we do agree (and I guess the final cost could be double of what you mentioned above). Bear in mind that the project is till in the tinkering phase: both software and hardware are continuously updated and optimised. This keeps cost high, because limit the volume production. I guess that once platform stabilise prices will go down sharply.