When I first entered the bitcoin scene in 2017, I changed my twitter username (now x) to “@nikcantmine”. (It was a joke that I thought was funny at the time since I didn't have the resources to mine btc in high school.) But today, I officially became a “nik CAN mine”.
The other week they gave me a Bitaxean open source (and very small) bitcoin miner, while attending the Human Rights Foundation's bitcoin Summit in Nashville. It's a pretty cool device that allows you to connect to a mining pool or a solo mine on your own.
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nik CAN mine pic.twitter.com/Mv1OuTyvBM
– Nicolás (@nikcantmine) twitter.com/nikcantmine/status/1843688718298907063?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>October 8, 2024
Setting up the device was pretty easy. Playing with it was fun and having the ability to hold a miner in the palm of my hand felt quite cypherpunk. Seems like a great way to introduce someone to very small scale mining.
Of course, by connecting this miner to a pool, you would not make any real profit, as this miner pales in comparison to the power that is actually needed today to profitably mine btc. But solo mining with this machine is where things get a little interesting.
Earlier this summer, a Bitaxe solo miner beat the odds and mined a block alone, earning the block reward of 3.25 btc, which is currently worth over $205,000.
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Congratulations to the miner with the first bitaxe block, just a small third place for finding the 290th individual block on solo ckpool! This amount of hashrate would only find a block once every 3500 YEARS on average, or 1 in 1.2 MILLION chances per day! https://t.co/5Wtu9jydsF pic.twitter.com/D5sSzug42P
— Dr.-ck (@ckpooldev) twitter.com/ckpooldev/status/1816216325108175245?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 24, 2024
x.com/altair_tech/status/1816176460656243146″>Data shows that this miner had consistently mined with 500Gh/s hashrate for weeks, and then had increased his hashrate up to 3TH just before the block was found. Which cheers me up a bit knowing that my Bitaxe is currently mining at over 634 Gh/s.
But I'm not getting my hopes up, considering I have no more hashrate to add and the odds of finding a block with this small hashrate are around 1 in 1.2 million per day. x.com/ckpooldev/status/1816216325108175245″>according to the administrator of Solo Ckpool, Dr. -ck.
Still, I got this machine for free, so I figured why not plug it in and see what happens? I'll deal with the power bill later when I see how much it is and re-evaluate if it's worth it to keep running. After using it, I probably wouldn't buy one based on economics alone, since I wouldn't be able to get my money back unless I won the lottery. But maybe I would buy one just to have it as a fun toy.
The chances of you finding a block are 0.001% per day, but honestly, it's fun to run around hoping to find a block alone. I can keep my Bitaxe running 24/7 if I so choose as it only requires a 5 volt power cord plugged into a regular outlet to operate. I have it set up here on my desk next to my monitor.
Coupled with a new Coldcard QI I just received, I couldn't stop thinking about how cool it would be to win a solo block mining with this and send that btc reward to a new bitcoin wallet.
This would mean that there is no public record of you receiving Bitaxe or Coldcard (aside from this article), and you would have some bitcoin without KYC.
This article is a Carry. The opinions expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of btc Inc or bitcoin Magazine.
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