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kristen@oreilly.com 2018-03-14 10:45:57 -07:00
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@ -867,10 +867,13 @@ In the last two years, the ASIC mining chips have become increasingly denser, ap
((("mining pools", id="MACoverpool10")))((("mining pools", "benefits of")))In this highly competitive environment, individual miners working alone (also known as solo miners) don't stand a chance. The likelihood of them finding a block to offset their electricity and hardware costs is so low that it represents a gamble, like playing the lottery. Even the fastest consumer ASIC mining system cannot keep up with commercial systems that stack tens of thousands of these chips in giant warehouses near hydroelectric powerstations. Miners now collaborate to form mining pools, pooling their hashing power and sharing the reward among thousands of participants. By participating in a pool, miners get a smaller share of the overall reward, but typically get rewarded every day, reducing uncertainty.
Let's look at a specific example. Assume a miner has purchased mining hardware with a combined hashing rate of 14,000 gigahashes per second (GH/s), or 14 TH/s. In 2017 this equipment costs approximately $2,500 USD. The hardware consumes 1375 watts (1.3 kW) of electricity when running, 33 kW-hours a day, at a cost of $1 to $2 per day at very low electricity rates. At current bitcoin difficulty, the miner will be able to solo mine a block approximately once every 4 years. How do we work out that probability? It is based on a network-wide hashing rate of 3 EH/sec (in 2017), and the miners rate of 14 TH/sec:
Let's look at a specific example. Assume a miner has purchased mining hardware with a combined hashing rate of 14,000 gigahashes per second (GH/s), or 14 TH/s. In 2017 this equipment costs approximately $2,500 USD. The hardware consumes 1375 watts (1.3 kW) of electricity when running, 33 kW-hours a day, at a cost of $1 to $2 per day at very low electricity rates. At current bitcoin difficulty, the miner will be able to solo mine a block approximately once every 4 years. How do we work out that probability? It is based on a network-wide hashing rate of 3 EH/sec (in 2017), and the miner's rate of 14 TH/sec:
P = (14 * 10^12^ / 3 * 10^18^) * 210240 = 0.98
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<ul class="simplelist">
<li>P = (14 * 10<sup>12</sup> / 3 * 10<sup>18</sup>) * 210240 = 0.98</li>
</ul>
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...where 21240 is the number of blocks in four years. The miner has a 98% probability of finding a block over four years, based on the global hash rate at the beginning of the period.