What is solo mining?

[Muhammed Zakir]

I saw in some websites that solo mining is more profitable but I don't know how to do that  .

1) What is solo mining? (Please give me a screenshot of that)
2) Is it profitable?
3) How to solo mine?

Kindly,
         Muhammed Zakhir

[Chrithu]

Ok Solo mining is the process of mining alone. When you connect to a pool, what technically happens is that all miners are connected to the same bitcoin-client in order to confirm transactions. This increases the probability of "finding" a block, but in turn the block reward is shared among all miners.

When you solo mine you connect your miner to your own local bitcoin client and try to "find" a block on your own. The probability of that is a lot lower but in turn you do not share the block reward.

Given how the bitcoin network works however. In the long run (that means if you mine either way VERE VERY LONG) solo mining and pooled mining will get you exactly the same amount.

In realistic timeframes though pooled mining definetly is the better way if your hardware has only small hashrate. A wild guess here is that it would take more than severeal tens of TH/s (that is Terrahashes per second, which is 1000 GH/s) to get more out of solo mining than pooled mining.

In the range that most current hardware can deliver solo mining is more like playing the lottery. But what is true is: If you are lucky you can cash out big time.

What you need n order to solo mine on windows is: Bitcoin-Core client, Mining hardware and BFGMiner or CGMiner.

Install Bitcoin-core, start it and let it download the whole blockchain (about 20 GB as of now).

Use a text editor to create a bitcoin.conf file C:\User\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\

Put the following lines in bitcoin.conf:

Code:

server=1
rpcuser=username
rpcpassword=password
rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
rpcport=8332

Then use 127.0.0.1:8332 as the server and the username and password you chose as the credentials to connect BFGMiner or CGMiner to the Bitcoin_Core client and have it mine.

Note: if you have other pools in the list of your miner software it might throw errors, try removing all pools from the list but your local connection.

The output for BFGMiner will also be different. You will not see any "share accepted" lines. To see if it works see if the effective average hashrate of your hardware changes to the same value and see if the BS (best Share) value in the upper right changes at the start.

[Muhammed Zakir]

Install Bitcoin-core, start it and let it download the whole blockchain (about 20 GB as of now).

Thanks!!! Is there any other way to download blockchain, through torrent or something like that? I am going to 5TH/s miner, is solo mining fit for this speed?

[Chrithu]

I don't know if someone is sharing a snapshot of the blockchain to torrent. You'd have to look.

And 5 TH/s would at least be worth testing for a week or two, maybe a month even. But I believe you'd still be better off mining on a pool. But I have no personal experience with those kinds of speed. Maybe someone else has better knowledge about that. I am just mining with 2 Antminer U2s for educational purposes and already switched to the solo ine lottery since having them run 24/7 isn't worth it. I keep them solo mining when I work on my PC or play games and maybe I'm lucky and mine a block sometime.

[socal]

quick question is that bitcoin solo mining config good for all coins or just bitcoin because a lot of sample solo mine configs I see look like this:

rpcuser=yourusername
rpcpassword=yourpassword
server=1
addnode=174.111.237.246
addnode=5.135.161.23
addnode=71.187.248.95
addnode=24.138.46.123



Which doesn't give you the ipallow or port or anything so therefore which way do I setup solo mining IN GENERAL not necessarily just for bitcoins

[Chrithu]

quick question is that bitcoin solo mining config good for all coins or just bitcoin because a lot of sample solo mine configs I see look like this:

rpcuser=yourusername
rpcpassword=yourpassword
server=1
addnode=174.111.237.246
addnode=5.135.161.23
addnode=71.187.248.95
addnode=24.138.46.123



Which doesn't give you the ipallow or port or anything so therefore which way do I setup solo mining IN GENERAL not necessarily just for bitcoins

Well since most altcoins basically are more or less copies of the official bitcoin client with some changes to how block detection works the config also is more or less the same. The generally similar things are:

You need the official wallet/client of the coin to setup solo mining.
You set that wallet into server mode (the server=1 line), which basically tells it to accept outside connections.
You set a password and username to allow connection only if those are given. Most clients do not enter server mode and give a warning/error message if those are not specified.
You set a range/list of IPs that are allowed to connect. Some clients will allow any IP to connect that uses the correct password/username if the router forwards connections. This makes this an optional setting.
You set a port to listen on for outside connections. Some clients use a standart port if none is set. Which makes this an optional setting. Afaik most use 8332 as default.

I am not completely sure but the addnode command has nothing to with mining per se. What it does is telling the wallet to allways connect to those nodes for the purpose of being connected with the coin's network in order to see transactions being broadcasted. I don't know if that is mandatory for some altcoins, but since they are all peer to peer that should not be necessary. It might be possible that this is needed for really new coins that aren't exactly used yet and do not see transactions yet. I am not familiar with altcoins that much.

So to cut it short: For most coins the minimum to setup solo mining is setting the client into server mode and specifying a username/password combination.

[socal]

awesome thanks!

[socal]

So my next question would be can I use a gridseed to solo mine and if so how?

[Chrithu]

So my next question would be can I use a gridseed to solo mine and if so how?

As I explained for Muhammad, if you setup the coin client to run as server and accept outside connection you simply point your mining software to the client instead of a mining pool.

That means, if your hardware is connected to the same PC on which the client runs you simply use http://127.0.0.1:8332 (change the 8332 accordingly if you set another port) as the address of the server in the mining software.

If your hardware  is connected to a different PC or has a network device and mining software of it's own (the bigger ASIC machines tend to have this, although you could still simply connect them to a PC using USB afaik) you need to use the local network address of the PC that runs the client as the serveraddress in the mining software.

That should be it.

It really is fairly simple.

[Muhammed Zakir]

How many BTC will I get as a reward for finding a block and also how will I know If I found a block?
Kindly,
        Muhammed Zakhir

[Chrithu]

How many BTC will I get as a reward for finding a block and also how will I know If I found a block?
Kindly,
        Muhammed Zakhir

Currently the block reward is 25 BTC + any transaction fees from the transactions that are included in the block. I haven't found a block yet in my VERY SMALL mining operation, but the miner software should tell you, and the balance of the wallet in your Bitcoin-Core Client will increase by 25 BTC.

[loszhor]

To answer the question: "Is solo mining profitable?" The answer is that it can be. Solo mining bitcoin itself is not since the difficulty is far, FAR too high to get blocks in a reasonable amount of time. But if you are solo mining an alt coin then you can possibly make some money doing so. The difference from pooled mining is that in pooled mining you're pretty much guaranteed to get coins regardless of how fast or slow your mining equipment is but if you are solo mining you will only get coins when you find a block but you get to keep all of them for yourself. The problem you will face is making sure you are mining what is a good use of your time at that moment since you will have to keep up to date on which coins have the best difficultly/price at that moment. You could end up wasting a lot of your time if your rig is too slow, the difficulty of said coin is already too high, or the block reward has lowered to where it's not worth the time even if the coins is trading for a high price. You'll have to make great use of profitability sites like coinwarz but you will also have to do some speculating on your own gut instinct on newer coins that may get onto exchanges, ones that you think MAY go up in price later on if they are on an exchange already, or have a good trading pairs with another coin. It's a lot more work than it seems, in a perfect world you could just buy a powerful rig and point it at any coin and pump and dump but a few quick searches will reveal the many victims of this mindset. So make sure it's something you want to devote your time to but if you are new I would highly recommend you learn the ropes pool mining first.

[socal]

To answer the question: "Is solo mining profitable?" The answer is that it can be. Solo mining bitcoin itself is not since the difficulty is far, FAR too high to get blocks in a reasonable amount of time. But if you are solo mining an alt coin then you can possibly make some money doing so. The difference from pooled mining is that in pooled mining you're pretty much guaranteed to get coins regardless of how fast or slow your mining equipment is but if you are solo mining you will only get coins when you find a block but you get to keep all of them for yourself. The problem you will face is making sure you are mining what is a good use of your time at that moment since you will have to keep up to date on which coins have the best difficultly/price at that moment. You could end up wasting a lot of your time if your rig is too slow, the difficulty of said coin is already too high, or the block reward has lowered to where it's not worth the time even if the coins is trading for a high price. You'll have to make great use of profitability sites like coinwarz but you will also have to do some speculating on your own gut instinct on newer coins that may get onto exchanges, ones that you think MAY go up in price later on if they are on an exchange already, or have a good trading pairs with another coin. It's a lot more work than it seems, in a perfect world you could just buy a powerful rig and point it at any coin and pump and dump but a few quick searches will reveal the many victims of this mindset. So make sure it's something you want to devote your time to but if you are new I would highly recommend you learn the ropes pool mining first.

VERY VERY true thats why I didn't even bother solo mining at first but now that (as far as research and such goes) I know what I'm doing I found a good low diff coin selling at decent price low block rewards but considering im finding blocks every two or three mins on the pools solo will be fine just one lil problem....I STILL can't get freaking solo mining to work even been getting help on the coin s thread but to no avail

[dlowings]

Be very careful about how you go about solo mining when it comes to bitcoin.. There is a TON of misinformation out there.. At a high level BFG and CGminer solo mine very well, however for the equipment like the Bitmain S1 and such that have special builds of CGminer and such, you can not just point your miner at Bitcoin CORE because it only supports Getwork protocol, and by default I believe that BFG and CGminer use stratum by default.. There needs to be some back end steps in order to set this up or you will end up thinking you are solo mining when you actually are not doing any real mining at all .

Also Everyone has their own point of view on the odds involved in solo mining.. I try to keep in perspective, if there were more solo miners working the block chain it generally ends up taking blocks from the pools. With that said, you are not going to find a lot of help around the solo mining concept because pool mining is moving to centralizing mining into 4 or 5 pools where solo mining works to decentralize Bitcoin.. As I watch Ghas.IO nail block after block I can clearly see that Bitcoin is moving away from its original goal of decentralization.

[xstr8guy]

You will have a very, very low chance of solving a block with only 5THs. 10 times that amount and your chances are still very thin. This is the reason why pool mining is the best (and only sensible) option for home miners.

[spartan82]

Just stick with pooled mining, do some research find yourself a good pool and you're guaranteed shares on each block found. Can't go wrong. 5Th isn't worth solo mining with

[ajareselde]

I saw in some websites that solo mining is more profitable but I don't know how to do that  .

1) What is solo mining? (Please give me a screenshot of that)
2) Is it profitable?
3) How to solo mine?

Kindly,
         Muhammed Zakhir

Solo mining is something you need to forget that it even exists, definetly judging by the fact u dont know what it is.
Today, solo mining is for huuuge farms, and something pools are setting up. definitively not for an average joe

[Ashbite]

Solo mining is not worth it buddy.(unless you are VERY VERY VERY lucky)
Just find a pool to join and get steady payment.

[salmondance]

Just like kind Muhammed i was wondering the same question and got all the answers from the discussion, so thanks to all who participated.

[fastaslighting]

It's when you mine straight into the coins server using it's RPC id or number and if you find a block you get the whole thing not just shared mining like in a pool all your efforts go to yourself for your hard work but if your running a cpu only your better of not knowing what solo mining is  a lot of times you wouldn't get a blocks for days unless theres no interest in the coin first off and sometimes it happens and then interest picks up and your lucky and mined a bunch of blocks