A Personal Computer Mined How Many Bitcoin Per Day In 2009? 100? 250? 1700?

[Eddie Sockittome]

I have always been interested in how difficult it was to mine BTC in 2009, but there seems to be no clear answer.

Various sources using various means of calculation come up with substantially different amounts. I've seen 100 BTC as a number, 150, 250, all supposedly from people who used regular home computers. The person who sold 10,000 BTC for $25 of pizza claimed in late 2010, twenty-two months after the Genesis Block, he was "no longer able to mine over 1,000 per day." One person online said 1,700 per day was possible with a Pentium II in 2009. There is a very big difference between 100 and 1,700 BTC per day.

Does anyone really know how many BTC someone could mine per day back in 2009 with a nice, personal home computer?

Was that same number per day still being mined in mid-2010 or had it become more difficult by that time?

Thanks!

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[odolvlobo]

I have always been interested in how difficult it was to mine BTC in 2009, but there seems to be no clear answer.

In 2009, the difficulty was 1. The number of blocks a computer could mine at the time varied depending on many factors, but a CPU miner had a hash rate of up to around 3 MH/s. With a difficulty of 1, that corresponded to a maximum of about 60 blocks per day, or 3000 BTC/day.

In 2010, the difficulty rose quickly as more people began mining, and so the number dropped. By the end of 2010, the difficulty was around 15000, so that same 3 MH/s CPU miner only mined 0.2 BTC/day.

BTW, the average time between blocks can be estimated with this:

time in seconds = difficulty * 2³² / hash rate

So, the average time to find a block for a 3 MH/s CPU at a difficulty of 1 is 1 * 2³² / 3000000 = 1432 seconds

[ArikeTobi]

I don't know the exact amount they are eligible to mined as at then, but base on what we have today, there's a lot of development that has improved from the way mining used to be then to how it is today, starting from the devices used and the number of miner and the hash rate, competitive experience has made a wide margin from that time henceforth.

[Eddie Sockittome]

I have always been interested in how difficult it was to mine BTC in 2009, but there seems to be no clear answer.

In 2009, the difficulty was 1. The number of blocks a computer could mine at the time varied depending on many factors. A CPU miner had a hash rate of up to around 3 MH/s. With difficulty of 1, that corresponds to about 60 blocks per day, or 3000 BTC/day.

In 2010, the difficulty rose quickly as more people began mining, and so the number dropped. By the end of 2010, the difficulty was around 15000, so that same 3 MH/s CPU miner only mined 0.2 BTC/day.

BTW, the average time between blocks can be estimated with this: time in seconds = difficulty * 2³² / hash rate

Fascinating, thank you.

It sounds like you are saying that if someone used the same computer and their hash rate remained 3 MH/s, that when the difficulty was "2," they could mine 1/2 the amount, or 1,500 per day? And when it was 10, one could mine 300 per day? It's just a linear progression, if the hash rate remained constant?

If so, that is astounding. According to a website that tracks "difficulty" back to January, 2009, the difficulty rate remained "1" from inception until January, 2010. By my calculation, one person with a run of the mill Pentium II and a hash rate of 3, running 24 hours per day for 362 days (Jan 3 was the first block) would have mined 1,086,000 Bitcoin in 2009.

[FatFork]

Here is a famous quote from theymos from that time:

I generated 5 blocks today on my Pentium processor. Two of them were within 3 minutes of each other.

Since this was before the first halving, the block rewards were of course 50 BTC, so 5 blocks would yield 250 BTC. But, theymos also mentioned that his computer is turned off while sleeping...

[Eddie Sockittome]

Here is a famous quote from theymos from that time:

I generated 5 blocks today on my Pentium processor. Two of them were within 3 minutes of each other.

Since this was before the first halving, the block rewards were of course 50 BTC, so 5 blocks would yield 250 BTC. But, theymos also mentioned that his computer is turned off while sleeping...

EDIT.

This is exactly where the "250 BTC/day" mentioned in my original post, was sourced. But that was Feb 16, 2010 and on that day the difficulty was 2.53. Which implies under the formula, even accounting for the fact he was only awake 16 hours per day, he should have been able to mine 790 BTC per waking day. Which is why I am confused. In theory, he should have mined the 250 BTC in just 5 hours. Maybe that is what he meant by "today?" Or perhaps he had an old computer that only had a hash rate of 1? The fact two blocks were mined within 2 minutes of each other but the other three blocks took the remainder of his waking day seems unusual.

[adaseb]

If you are the only one mining like satoshi then it doesn’t matter what speed your processor is running at.

There is a block every 10 minutes on average so in a given day there is 144 blocks. Back then block reward was 50 so in total about 7200 should be produced daily.

If satoshi was the only person mining that’s how much he could mine max per day. If another person with a similar set up started to mine with satoshis, the rewards would be split between the two.

[odolvlobo]

If you are the only one mining like satoshi then it doesn’t matter what speed your processor is running at.
There is a block every 10 minutes on average so in a given day there is 144 blocks. Back then block reward was 50 so in total about 7200 should be produced daily.
If satoshi was the only person mining that’s how much he could mine max per day. If another person with a similar set up started to mine with satoshis, the rewards would be split between the two.

Your hash rate and the difficulty determine the rate at which you solve blocks even if you are the only one mining. A 3 MH/s miner will mine 60 blocks per day when the difficulty is 1, even if they are the only miner.

You will notice that in 2009 the average block time was higher than 10 minutes. Normally, the difficulty automatically adjusts in order to maintain a block time of 10 minutes, but there is a minimum difficulty of 1. In 2009, the total hash rate of the network was not high enough to find a block every 10 minutes at the minimum difficulty. In order to mine a block every 10 minutes with a difficulty of 1, you need a hash rate of about 7.2 MH/s.

[dzungmobile]

The man who bought pizzas with bitcoins stopped such trade because he was no longer able to mine thousands of bitcoin per day.

He opened for pizzas x bitcoins trade in May 2010 but stopped it in August 2010, just three months later. If we check Bitcoin network hashrate and difficulty, I believe there was sharp increase within three months from May to August 2010.

Well I didn't expect this to be so popular but I can't really afford to keep doing it since I can't generate thousands of coins a day anymore   Thanks to everyone who bought me pizza already but I'm kind of holding off on doing any more of these for now.

[franky1]

in 2009 each computer mined a block(solo mining, one cpu=one vote)

you can look at the first 1000 blocks (jan 9- jan19) so average 100 blocks a day
you can look at the next 2016 blocks (upto 3016) (jan19- feb4) is 17 days so average 118 blocks a day
and so on
and so on

then you can look at the "patoshi extranonce pattern" data, or just get extranonce from your own blockchain data
to see which blocks got solved in sequences (meaning same computer, progressing one block to next)
and you can see how many computers were involved over time via seeing how many different sequences were operating

for instance in the first 79 blocks, block 12 and block 65 was out of sequence, suggesting 1 computer mined 77 of the first 79 blocks which was 2 days so 39 blocks a day max mining in first couple days

you can then extrapolate more data for other days after it using the patoshi data/extranonce to kind of guess how many different systems were operating in 2009

for instance
i just thought of random block 5000.. and looked at the what day it appeared(feb20th)
 and found first block of that day 4932 and last block of day 5048 (uk time)
meaning 116blocks that one day

there were 5 separate sequences happening that day(5 computers)
where the best sequence solved 89 of the 116 blocks

so that random day i picked, had one computer getting 89*50=4450 coin

heres a screen shot of part of that days sequences of extranonce(red is blocknumber) to show 5 columns(computers) of different sequences

[Lucius]

Although the OP asked an interesting question, it is also very interesting to me that during the first 4 years as much as 50% of all Bitcoins were mined, and of that as much as 2.625 million in the first year.

Therefore, we can conclude that the first users were really privileged in some way, because not only could they mine with their personal computers, but they also had the opportunity to mine blocks with the highest rewards. It was, without any doubt, perhaps the most interesting time in the short history of Bitcoin, and the most fruitful period in someone's life if by any chance he saved the mined BTC for the future.

[bobbybkk]

Although the OP asked an interesting question, it is also very interesting to me that during the first 4 years as much as 50% of all Bitcoins were mined, and of that as much as 2.625 million in the first year.

Therefore, we can conclude that the first users were really privileged in some way, because not only could they mine with their personal computers, but they also had the opportunity to mine blocks with the highest rewards. It was, without any doubt, perhaps the most interesting time in the short history of Bitcoin, and the most fruitful period in someone's life if by any chance he saved the mined BTC for the future.

And imagine a guy staring at an old harddrive with a 10 000 Bitcoins on it, but he forgot the seed phrase of the wallet.....

[The Sceptical Chymist]

In 2009, the difficulty was 1. The number of blocks a computer could mine at the time varied depending on many factors, but a CPU miner had a hash rate of up to around 3 MH/s. With a difficulty of 1, that corresponded to a maximum of about 60 blocks per day, or 3000 BTC/day.
<snip>

Neat!  This is the kind of stuff I've wondered about in the back of my head but never really sought out the answers to, and I appreciate the detailed explanation.

And here we are in 2024, where a bunch of shitcoins can still be mined using CPUs, GPUs, ASICs, and even hard drives but nothing comes close to bitcoin in terms of popularity or market domination.  If only I'd heard about it in the very early days and understood its significance (because as it stands, there was a disconnect between the two the way it happened for me anyhow), I'd be living a much different life right now.  In any case, it's wild to think about how easy it was to mine BTC then as opposed to now--the evolution from using a PC to high-dollar ASICs seems like something that would have taken place over decades instead of 15 years (in my mind at least).

Even the early faucets paid out what in hindsight was an incredible amount of bitcoin.  Even if you'd saved everything you received from faucets from back in 2015, you'd probably have a decent stash.  I hate thinking about this stuff.   

[tranthidung]

Although the OP asked an interesting question, it is also very interesting to me that during the first 4 years as much as 50% of all Bitcoins were mined, and of that as much as 2.625 million in the first year.

Therefore, we can conclude that the first users were really privileged in some way, because not only could they mine with their personal computers, but they also had the opportunity to mine blocks with the highest rewards. It was, without any doubt, perhaps the most interesting time in the short history of Bitcoin, and the most fruitful period in someone's life if by any chance he saved the mined BTC for the future.

I learned from bitcointalk by senior members that if you want to take profit, take profit like 90% of what you have and reserve 10% for something you even don't imagine will happen. It is like a lottery ticket and no risk because you already take profit includes your initial capital.

So it's worth to make a bet with 10% rest for something that can change your life. If it won't happen, you won't lose anything. In contrast, if you take profit with 100% coins you have, you will no longer have a life-changing ticket. I very agree with this advice and glad to learn it here.

Below strategy from JayJuanGee and bitmover is different but it's good one too.

• [ANN] JJG Sustainable Bitcoin Withdrawal Strategy
• https://bitcoindata.science/withdrawal-strategy

[bobbybkk]

In 2009, the difficulty was 1. The number of blocks a computer could mine at the time varied depending on many factors, but a CPU miner had a hash rate of up to around 3 MH/s. With a difficulty of 1, that corresponded to a maximum of about 60 blocks per day, or 3000 BTC/day.
<snip>

Neat!  This is the kind of stuff I've wondered about in the back of my head but never really sought out the answers to, and I appreciate the detailed explanation.

And here we are in 2024, where a bunch of shitcoins can still be mined using CPUs, GPUs, ASICs, and even hard drives but nothing comes close to bitcoin in terms of popularity or market domination.  If only I'd heard about it in the very early days and understood its significance (because as it stands, there was a disconnect between the two the way it happened for me anyhow), I'd be living a much different life right now.  In any case, it's wild to think about how easy it was to mine BTC then as opposed to now--the evolution from using a PC to high-dollar ASICs seems like something that would have taken place over decades instead of 15 years (in my mind at least).

Even the early faucets paid out what in hindsight was an incredible amount of bitcoin.  Even if you'd saved everything you received from faucets from back in 2015, you'd probably have a decent stash.  I hate thinking about this stuff.   

You can learn and start investing small amounts in high risk options - even if you bought some NVidia shares in 2013 you would have made a very decent return by now.....

It is never too late.....

[btc78]

Although the OP asked an interesting question, it is also very interesting to me that during the first 4 years as much as 50% of all Bitcoins were mined, and of that as much as 2.625 million in the first year.

Therefore, we can conclude that the first users were really privileged in some way, because not only could they mine with their personal computers, but they also had the opportunity to mine blocks with the highest rewards. It was, without any doubt, perhaps the most interesting time in the short history of Bitcoin, and the most fruitful period in someone's life if by any chance he saved the mined BTC for the future.

I also find it fascinating that people were able to mine from their own home computers considering this was in 2009 where the internet was still relatively new and something that not everyone was very knowledgeable about

Of course we can expect that those who were already mining at that time were basically geniuses of their time because like i said during this time not everyone can do what they were doing so the rewards they got were really well deserved and it would be interesting to talk to someone who mined bitcoin from that time and share to us how they did it and how it impacted their lives

[bobbybkk]

Although the OP asked an interesting question, it is also very interesting to me that during the first 4 years as much as 50% of all Bitcoins were mined, and of that as much as 2.625 million in the first year.

Therefore, we can conclude that the first users were really privileged in some way, because not only could they mine with their personal computers, but they also had the opportunity to mine blocks with the highest rewards. It was, without any doubt, perhaps the most interesting time in the short history of Bitcoin, and the most fruitful period in someone's life if by any chance he saved the mined BTC for the future.

I also find it fascinating that people were able to mine from their own home computers considering this was in 2009 where the internet was still relatively new and something that not everyone was very knowledgeable about

Of course we can expect that those who were already mining at that time were basically geniuses of their time because like i said during this time not everyone can do what they were doing so the rewards they got were really well deserved and it would be interesting to talk to someone who mined bitcoin from that time and share to us how they did it and how it impacted their lives

maybe you find this WIRED article from 2011 interesting:

https://www.wired.com/2011/11/mf-bitcoin/

[Lucius]

And imagine a guy staring at an old harddrive with a 10 000 Bitcoins on it, but he forgot the seed phrase of the wallet.....

If we talk about the very beginnings, then it should be noted that at that time there were no BTC wallets with seed and that Electrum appeared only at the end of 2011, and it seems to me that wallets with seed did not exist before that.

As for those who are at least publicly known, some are looking for their HDD with thousands of BTC in the garbage dump, others claim that they hid them in fishing rods that ended up in the garbage dump again. In those early days, few people could have predicted that Bitcoin would actually succeed in becoming what it is today.

I also find it fascinating that people were able to mine from their own home computers considering this was in 2009 where the internet was still relatively new and something that not everyone was very knowledgeable about
~snip~

The internet was already quite widespread then, at least here in Europe, where I already had ADSL sometime in 2004/05, and dial-up for years before that. Although quality equipment was quite expensive then, because for one LCD monitor that I bought then, today you can buy a solid 100+ cm smart TV or a laptop. I have to admit that I only heard about Bitcoin sometime in 2011, but then it didn't seem like something interesting to me.

[bolshojkush]

Although the OP asked an interesting question, it is also very interesting to me that during the first 4 years as much as 50% of all Bitcoins were mined, and of that as much as 2.625 million in the first year.

Therefore, we can conclude that the first users were really privileged in some way, because not only could they mine with their personal computers, but they also had the opportunity to mine blocks with the highest rewards. It was, without any doubt, perhaps the most interesting time in the short history of Bitcoin, and the most fruitful period in someone's life if by any chance he saved the mined BTC for the future.

I think a lot of them lost their bitcoins, for example, by simply reinstalling Windows, since then bitcoin was almost worthless. But, many have earned for themselves for life. Oh, I would like to be in 2009 now))

[Natsuu]

Although the OP asked an interesting question, it is also very interesting to me that during the first 4 years as much as 50% of all Bitcoins were mined, and of that as much as 2.625 million in the first year.

Therefore, we can conclude that the first users were really privileged in some way, because not only could they mine with their personal computers, but they also had the opportunity to mine blocks with the highest rewards. It was, without any doubt, perhaps the most interesting time in the short history of Bitcoin, and the most fruitful period in someone's life if by any chance he saved the mined BTC for the future.

I also find it fascinating that people were able to mine from their own home computers considering this was in 2009 where the internet was still relatively new and something that not everyone was very knowledgeable about

Of course we can expect that those who were already mining at that time were basically geniuses of their time because like i said during this time not everyone can do what they were doing so the rewards they got were really well deserved and it would be interesting to talk to someone who mined bitcoin from that time and share to us how they did it and how it impacted their lives

Exactly! Those early miners were basically tech pioneers, diving into this new and mysterious world. They had to be real tech geeks, figuring out how to mine with their home computers in a time when not everyone was tech-savvy. Imagine being one of them setting up your rig, cracking the crypto codes. It would be so helpful!

[DeathAngel]

I have always been interested in how difficult it was to mine BTC in 2009, but there seems to be no clear answer.

In 2009, the difficulty was 1. The number of blocks a computer could mine at the time varied depending on many factors, but a CPU miner had a hash rate of up to around 3 MH/s. With a difficulty of 1, that corresponded to a maximum of about 60 blocks per day, or 3000 BTC/day.

In 2010, the difficulty rose quickly as more people began mining, and so the number dropped. By the end of 2010, the difficulty was around 15000, so that same 3 MH/s CPU miner only mined 0.2 BTC/day.

BTW, the average time between blocks can be estimated with this:

time in seconds = difficulty * 2³² / hash rate

So, the average time to find a block for a 3 MH/s CPU at a difficulty of 1 is 1 * 2³² / 3000000 = 1432 seconds

Incredible insight, if only I was lucky enough to be aware of Bitcoin back then. By the time I finally got in, in 2015,  the days of solo CPU Mining were a thing of the past. Congratulations to were involved that early, must feel good.

[Eddie Sockittome]

Although the OP asked an interesting question, it is also very interesting to me that during the first 4 years as much as 50% of all Bitcoins were mined, and of that as much as 2.625 million in the first year.

Therefore, we can conclude that the first users were really privileged in some way, because not only could they mine with their personal computers, but they also had the opportunity to mine blocks with the highest rewards. It was, without any doubt, perhaps the most interesting time in the short history of Bitcoin, and the most fruitful period in someone's life if by any chance he saved the mined BTC for the future.

I think a lot of them lost their bitcoins, for example, by simply reinstalling Windows, since then bitcoin was almost worthless. But, many have earned for themselves for life. Oh, I would like to be in 2009 now))

Just curious how they might have lost their Bitcoin by reinstalling Windows.

Given how often computer hard drives seem to crash back in the day, I am amazed 20% of all BTC are not permanently lost.

[bobbybkk]

Although the OP asked an interesting question, it is also very interesting to me that during the first 4 years as much as 50% of all Bitcoins were mined, and of that as much as 2.625 million in the first year.

Therefore, we can conclude that the first users were really privileged in some way, because not only could they mine with their personal computers, but they also had the opportunity to mine blocks with the highest rewards. It was, without any doubt, perhaps the most interesting time in the short history of Bitcoin, and the most fruitful period in someone's life if by any chance he saved the mined BTC for the future.

I think a lot of them lost their bitcoins, for example, by simply reinstalling Windows, since then bitcoin was almost worthless. But, many have earned for themselves for life. Oh, I would like to be in 2009 now))

Just curious how they might have lost their Bitcoin by reinstalling Windows.

Given how often computer hard drives seem to crash back in the day, I am amazed 20% of all BTC are not permanently lost.

I guess in the early days Bitcoin was kind of worthless, so nobody bothered to save the private key on paper or so. So people just deleted the whole wallet when reinstalling windows....Bitcoins gone....

[Ratters]

I guess in the early days Bitcoin was kind of worthless, so nobody bothered to save the private key on paper or so. So people just deleted the whole wallet when reinstalling windows....Bitcoins gone....

We just made sure we had a copy of our wallet.dat on a memory stick or external Hdd.
I have hundreds of them, all worthless now!

[kuriboh]

Incredible insight, if only I was lucky enough to be aware of Bitcoin back then. By the time I finally got in, in 2015,  the days of solo CPU Mining were a thing of the past. Congratulations to were involved that early, must feel good.

According to your words, I remembered a golden past. I joined the forum on May 6, 2013. I learned a lot from here by sharing many types of news and knowledge. The very happy thing was that on the 6th of May 2013, I got one BTC, and on the 13th of August, I got two BTC. It was a beautiful moment, but I sold it for a little. I would have been lucky if I had been a little more aware. Happily, I got BTC for that, too, through this forum.
CPU mining was different. It was very old when we didn't have such digital technology. Now, we take this mining thing as seriously as it was, and then it was not taken very seriously, and everyone didn't give it that much importance. Everyone looked down on it. The meagre time of that time has become like a dream of the present. Those who held on have developed their future, and those like us who could not hold on have lost the golden past.

Just curious how they might have lost their Bitcoin by reinstalling Windows.

If you think about Windows 2009, you can see that using the new Windows, nothing is left behind; we get everything new. Now, many things can be kept in different ways with the development of technology. Many bits have been lost like this in the past to tourize them.

[SAHASAN]

Hi there it is totally depend on computer configuration so nobody able to give perfect ans.
But that time mining was so easy.

[pooya87]

Just curious how they might have lost their Bitcoin by reinstalling Windows.

Bitcoin core stores the data in the same drive as your windows (C:) and I believe it always stored it in the %APPDATA% route. So when you re-install windows and format that same drive you lose all your data including your wallet file.
There was also the fact that bitcoin didn't have a price back then and was purely experimental.

Given how often computer hard drives seem to crash back in the day,

Kind of OT but were they really that bad? Maybe I was lucky because my 20 GB HDD from back in 1990's worked fine and I even still have it somewhere in the house as a relic

[TheUltraElite]

We just made sure we had a copy of our wallet.dat on a memory stick or external Hdd.
I have hundreds of them, all worthless now!

Have heard of these stories from newly joined accounts every few weeks on this forum. Someone looking for help to unlock their wallet.dat file while others scamming someone trying to "sell" their loaded wallet.dat file.

Since I started learning about bitcoin back in 2015-16 when the price was in three digits I never got to see any of that action. But reading the calculations posted on this thread, I now realize why some of the OG gamblers on Primedice and other old casinos have thousands of bitcoin gambled on their accounts and the owners made the best money out of them.

[Ratters]

Have heard of these stories from newly joined accounts every few weeks on this forum. Someone looking for help to unlock their wallet.dat file while others scamming someone trying to "sell" their loaded wallet.dat file.

Only rich people used a password! I'm not sure you could even lock the OG BitcoinQT. I think that was introduced with new Multibit wallet. I certainly never set a password for any of my QTs.

[Lucius]

Kind of OT but were they really that bad? Maybe I was lucky because my 20 GB HDD from back in 1990's worked fine and I even still have it somewhere in the house as a relic

I am sure that such things were of much better quality than they are today, because they were made to last - and today they are made to break down within a certain period of time. I also have a lot of old electronics that are over 20 years old and mostly still functional.

[Eddie Sockittome]

for instance
i just thought of random block 5000.. and looked at the what day it appeared(feb20th)
 and found first block of that day 4932 and last block of day 5048 (uk time)
meaning 116blocks that one day

there were 5 separate sequences happening that day(5 computers)
where the best sequence solved 89 of the 116 blocks

so that random day i picked, had one computer getting 89*50=4450 coin

Meaning on Feb 20, 2009, people could mine $300,000,000 of Bitcoin (at today's value) on their Pentium II..... per day.  

Clarifying question... I assume people used the same computer to do this day after day, often for weeks or months. If someone ran the mining program for 3 months, it was all going to the same address? I wonder because the one guy who had 75,000BTC on his hard drive that is famously lost in the landfill.... he likely mined that before seed phrases. The fact all there was at the time was the private key and no one has stolen those coins after 11 years, shows how secure private keys can be even without a seed phrase. In theory!

[Vincom]

There was also the fact that bitcoin didn't have a price back then and was purely experimental.

It's fascinating to look back in time and realize what we missed out on. In 2009, many of us were probably aware of BTC's existence but would rather use our PCs to play games than mine a few worthless BTC at the time. Back in 2009, those who believed in BTC's future might have only included Satoshi and a few devs with a very clear vision for the post-crisis economy.

I hope that the story of a miner who mined BTC in 2009 and became a millionaire in 2025 when 1BTC = 150K USD will soon be shared and adapted into a movie. It would be a must-watch movie as BTC sets its ATH for the season.

[SickDayIn]

It depends on the time period in 2009, as the difficulty would have been at it's lowest. It could have been possible to mine millions of coins at some stages in 2009. You might have had a lot of Bitcoin mined in this period but the average amount of Bitcoin transactions per month was less than 100.

[bg002h]

I dunno. I guess 144 blocks / a small integer number of people.

But I can say that in July 2012, my year old Mac laptop did 4 blocks in 12 hrs before difficulty adjusted.