Considering the rise of cryptocurrencies and mining in recent times, almost everyone is interested in them, if only as a passing interest. However, you have probably wondered how long it would take a single computer to mine a bitcoin to see how long it would take you to earn one. It is essential to note that while 1 BTC may not sound like much, it is over $40,000 at the time of writing. If you want to stay up to date with cryptocurrencies and their ever-changing values, take a look at crypto news.

How does mining work?

To understand how long it would take, we first need a basic understanding of how mining works. A massive network of crypto miners try to discover new blocks that have a set BTC value, 6.25 currently and are halved every four years or so. Someone finds a block every 10 minutes. Because anyone can discover a block and so many people are competing, the odds of being that person are relatively low. This is why people band together and join together, forming mining pools where, no matter who discovers the block, the reward is distributed evenly among all participants based on their provided hash rate or computational power. The largest current pool is F2pool, which provides around 17.5% of the total hash rate (33.36 EH/s out of 190.36 EH/s). This means that a little less than 1 in 5 blocks is discovered by someone in F2pool.

What does this mean for solo miners??

As stated above, solo mining is far less consistent and more risky because you have to be lucky and be the only person in a thousand to discover a block. Depending on your hash rate, the average time it would take for this to happen can vary wildly. Unless you’re really lucky, it wouldn’t be profitable simply because of the energy costs associated with keeping your equipment running all this time, unless you have an insanely high hash rate. Solo mining can be either an incredibly profitable endeavor or a dead-end waste of money, entirely depending on whether or not you get lucky and end up discovering a block within a reasonable amount of time. What is reasonable? Well, that depends on how expensive electricity is to keep your rig running.

What would it take to make 1 BTC consistently?

As with everything related to cryptocurrencies, these numbers are subject to change at any time. As for making 1 BTC every day, you would need to contribute 0.55% of the total hash rate or just over 1 EH/s. To put this in perspective, even if you were to use the latest mining rig, it would take thousands of them to reach this hash rate which is not feasible, not only because of the price but also because of the availability to get several thousand of the latest rigs. mining would be quite difficult. It would take around four years for one of these platforms alone to earn 1 BTC in rewards within a pool.

What about my team?

To return to the question of what would it take for your specific platform to mine 1 BTC, you can see that the answer is not simple, and because luck is a huge factor in play, we can only calculate the required averages and not an exact number. Maybe you’ll get lucky and discover a block quickly, maybe it’ll take longer than the calculations would say. The main factors that go into how long it would take for your team to discover a block are hash rate and luck. The time it would take also depends on the total hash rate of the miners on the network. As the hash rate increases, the mining difficulty also increases to keep the discovery time of a block stable at about 10 minutes, regardless of how many people are trying to find it at any given time.

Should I just mine then?

If only mine depends on one thing. Do you think the risk versus reward is worth it? If you think that massive 6.25 BTC payout is worth risking much less consistency for, then solo mining would be the way to go. Keep in mind, however, that if you’re unlucky, you could roll the bones thousands of times and mine them for months or even years without discovering a block yourself. So there is a reason why many miners, even those with industrial-grade setups, often prefer to mine in pools.

If, for some reason, the number of people and the total hash rate decreased, then the chances that you would be the only person to discover a new block would increase. However, it also means that if the total hash rate continues to grow, your chances will continue to decrease unless you also proportionally increase the hash rate of your setup.

What about cloud mining?

While this is a valid alternative that many people use at the moment, since it doesn’t involve running the actual hardware and often doesn’t even know where it is, I would only recommend it to those who like to gamble. The thing is, with cloud mining, you simply buy a contract that promises to pay you a certain number of bitcoins after a certain period, and the only way to see if it will work is to wait and wait for your payment. So I would not recommend this method even if it was the only alternative simply because other options include pool mining where you know what you get. You can also see how much your hash rate contributes to the total of any pool you’re using.

what to bring

We think you should remember that the time it takes to discover a block is stable regardless of the number of people who try it, which means that the difficulty of the blocks is never the same. Also, remember that you are betting on reward vs. consistency in solo mining vs. pool mining. Whatever you decide to do, remember to calculate the numbers yourself in case they have changed and compare them to electricity costs in your area to see if and how you should mine.

Story of David Van Derede

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