Lottery mining: a cost-benefit analysis

[FP91G]

I'd recommend reading reviews of the equipment. Inexperienced users often buy this type of equipment, thinking it requires no maintenance.
If you plan to use it as a heater, be sure to clean it of dust.

True, but 10 minutes every fortnight / month depending on your risk tolerance should do it. Obviously, every time you're doing maintenance there's a small risk of breaking things just by handling them, and the cleaning process itself. I'm assuming a lot of people go for a lot longer with their maintenance schedules.

You could potentially get fancy, and build a bigger case for them and have a positive airflow. Seems a bit overkill for lottery mining though.

Unfortunately, breakdowns often occur as a result of unqualified repairs.
That's why I'm writing about the need to research these issues first before purchasing equipment. Unfortunately, most home appliances have cooling issues, which is caused by the equipment being manufactured to produce low noise levels.

[LoyceV]

That's finding a block once every 227 years on average.

If more people would do the math on lotteries, they wouldn't play at all. Imagine: "if you play monthly, you'll win on average once every 10 million years". Lol

With "just" 7 million people across the world, or less than 0.1% of the population, having a Bitaxe running in their house, we would expect lottery miners to find block every day.

Have a look at the solo mining pool payouts: the transaction mined 0.06304371 BTC to bc1q28kkr5hk4gnqe3evma6runjrd2pvqyp8fpwfzu. Google brings me to pool.nerdminers.org (although I don't see that address on the site). It shows 2000+ users with a hashrate under 2 GH/s. I can't make sense out of this. But on-chain, the same address received similar mining payments 3 times this month, 2 times in September, 1 time in August and 3 times in July. That's 9 blocks in (almost) half a year, or one block every 20 days. That puts it at the equivalent of about 350,000 people running a lottery miner. In reality, I assume it's less people and some of them have much higher hashrates.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Have a look at the solo mining pool payouts: the transaction mined 0.06304371 BTC to bc1q28kkr5hk4gnqe3evma6runjrd2pvqyp8fpwfzu.

That address belongs to the owner of CKPool. He charges 2% of every block reward, if your miner solves a block.

That's 9 blocks in (almost) half a year, or one block every 20 days.

Yes, but consider that not all miners in CKPool are lottery miners. Most people who find blocks there have a lot more than just 1 TH/s. If you visit eusolostats.ckpool.org, you can see that right now, 42 PH/s are directed to that pool. (And another 167 PH/s in the American pool.) I think only three people have ever found a block with Bitaxe. One of them was the one referred in the OP: https://asktom.cf/index.php?topic=5237323.msg66076933#msg66076933.

[FP91G]

In addition to finding a block on ckpool.org, the entire reward will be taken by the miner whose equipment makes the correct calculations.
For such a lottery, a miner with 1 PH/s requires very cheap electricity, and old ASICs can be bought inexpensively.
This is about 35 kilowatts per hour.

[LoyceV]

This is about 35 kilowatts per hour.

FTFY
I don't think many people have access to cheap 35 kW. There's a reason miners are highly concentrated in areas with very cheap power.

[BlackHatCoiner]

For such a lottery, a miner with 1 PH/s requires very cheap electricity, and old ASICs can be bought inexpensively

Old ASICs can be bought inexpensively, but old ASICs have a pretty terrible performance, in comparison with new ASICs. The capital calculation miners need to make depends on whether they're willing to place large capital to get new ASICs today or pay more in electricity costs over the long term. Tough business.

There's a reason miners are highly concentrated on areas with very cheap power.

Also, many miners mine at a loss, because in some jurisdictions, mining bitcoin comes cheaper after taxes than buying and selling later. I think the former is not subjected to capital gains tax.

[Somegory]

The cost of taking same risks everyday is what I don't like about gambling and lottery ticket chasing.
I like to take a risk and forget about it, this is the type of a person that I am, take the risk and forget about it.
This is why I like Bitcoin too, just buy and lock it up, then go back to my normal life like nothing happened.

I prefer to spend money on a asic miner, even if it is just a home miner and that's the end of me purchasing lottery tickets every blessed day, just one move and you get that "maybe I can win if I buy a lottery ticket" off my head, I will just let the miner do it's thing and if in the future some free money shows up again I can improve the hash rate by buying extra miner again.

[Welsh]

If more people would do the math on lotteries, they wouldn't play at all. Imagine: "if you play monthly, you'll win on average once every 10 million years". Lol

This is going to sound like I'm coping, but it's better odds typically than normal lotteries. Although, that also means generally the prize won is lower. However, if you can afford the taxes, and you sit on Bitcoin for a few years or to the next halving....

Yeah, I'm definitely coping. Nah, the real reason I like these machines is because it scratches the DIY electronic nerd in me, while also being fairly inexpensive if you break it. There's a saying in the UK, in fact it's the Motto for the special forces; Who dares, wins.

In reality, all I'm doing is donating to the electrical companies. On the other hand; <insert gif of Jim Carrey's 'So, you're telling me there's a chance'> .

[LoyceV]

If more people would do the math on lotteries, they wouldn't play at all. Imagine: "if you play monthly, you'll win on average once every 10 million years". Lol

This is going to sound like I'm coping, but it's better odds typically than normal lotteries.

I was talking about normal lotteries, the 10 million years will depend on the number of players and the prizes of course. Bitcoin lottery mining has better odds, it's only tens of thousands of years On average, you may get lucky

[Cryptoman2009]

I’ll add my own experience, because I actually solo-mine every day and pay the bill for it.

I’m running 6 Bitaxe Gamma 601 overclocked, around 10 TH/s total, pointed at ckpool with my own Bitcoin Core node behind it. No pooled mining, no shortcuts.

The Bitaxes together pull about 26A @ 5V , which is roughly 93 kWh/month. For me that’s around €26/month.

My node machine runs 24/7 and averages about 60W, which is another 43 kWh/month → ~€12/month.

So my total cost to solo mine properly with a real node is about €38 per month.

People waste more than that without even noticing — lottery tickets, cigarettes, football bets, energy drinks, casino apps, whatever. At least my €38 don’t disappear into a government garbage chute. They keep hardware running, they keep a full node online, and they give me a microscopic-but-real chance to hit a block.

Someone just did it with 6 TH/s. So no, the window isn’t closed.

Will I personally ever hit a block? Almost certainly not.
Do I prefer burning €38/month on Bitcoin rather than the lottery? Absolutely.
At least here the “hope” isn’t rigged, isn’t taxed, and isn’t designed to make me lose.

If I’m going to pay for a miracle, I’d rather pay for the Bitcoin one.

And just for the record, if one of my Bitaxes ever does find a block, the coinbase address starts with: 1BiTaxEwsBfKy…
Because sometimes in life, it’s simply better to dream.

[LoyceV]

I’m running 6 Bitaxe Gamma 601 overclocked

This one (+2 more)?

[treesintheforestooh]

I’ll add my own experience, because I actually solo-mine every day and pay the bill for it.

I’m running 6 Bitaxe Gamma 601 overclocked, around 10 TH/s total, pointed at ckpool with my own Bitcoin Core node behind it. No pooled mining, no shortcuts.

Love this perspective overall.

How are you liking the Bitaxes? I'm considering getting one for the heck of it. Anything you'd like to see improved or anything that really makes you impressed?

[Cryptoman2009]

I’m running 6 Bitaxe Gamma 601 overclocked

This one (+2 more)?

https://i.vgy.me/Kh4YeI.jpg

Yes, they were a good price during Black Friday, so I picked up two more.
The cooling shrouds have already been printed, and I'm waiting for Noctua to install the fans like the other four.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/12/10/UTfyyD.png

[LoyceV]

Quoting for image to show up:

[FP91G]

A solo bitcoin miner beat staggering odds to solve a block and take home the full subsidy and transaction fee rewards late Thursday.

The miner collected a total of 3.133 ($284,633) for mining block 927,474, using solo bitcoin-mining software from CKpool, according to the Bitcoin explorer Mempool. This comprised 3.125 BTC in block subsidy rewards ($283,944) and 0.008 BTC ($689) in transaction fees.

"Congratulations to miner 1Ng9~VoQz with 270TH for solving the 311th solo block at solo.ckpool.org!" CKpool developer Con Kolivas posted on X. "A miner of this size has a 1 in 30,000 chance of solving a block per day." This equates to roughly once every 82 years.
Link

[LoyceV]

Two weeks ago I realized it's very easy to mine Monero Stagenet. This topic made me curious about the cost-benefit of mining real Monero, so I set it up on a laptop: it tells me I have a 1 in 6243 daily chance of finding a block. The reward per block is about $253, so $0.04 per day on average. At 36W, this costs me $0.26 per day (but I get 36W of heat in return for winter). It takes me 973 days to spend the entire block reward on electricity. If I run this for 10 years, I'm certain to lose money. If I'd run a Bitcoin lottery miner for 10 years, losing money is very likely but there's still a small chance of hitting the jackpot.
TL;DR: lottery mining only makes sense with a high block reward.

[BlackHatCoiner]

TL;DR: lottery mining only makes sense with a high block reward.

Yep. Exactly. Bitcoin Cash can also give you a block reward of around 3.125 BCH (~$1800), and with a Bitaxe Gamma 601, you have around 1 in 70 chances to solve it if you leave it running for one whole year. That's finding a block once every 70 years in theory, and never in practice, because Bitcoin Cash is not going to be around in 70 years from now.  

The smart thing in solo-mining bitcoin is that, while the chances are slim, and it is clearly economically forbidden to increase hashpower with the average electricity cost, you're betting to be the error in the probabilistic function that outsmarts the math behind.

[FP91G]

Two weeks ago I realized it's very easy to mine Monero Stagenet. This topic made me curious about the cost-benefit of mining real Monero, so I set it up on a laptop: it tells me I have a 1 in 6243 daily chance of finding a block. The reward per block is about $253, so $0.04 per day on average. At 36W, this costs me $0.26 per day (but I get 36W of heat in return for winter). It takes me 973 days to spend the entire block reward on electricity. If I run this for 10 years, I'm certain to lose money. If I'd run a Bitcoin lottery miner for 10 years, losing money is very likely but there's still a small chance of hitting the jackpot.
TL;DR: lottery mining only makes sense with a high block reward.

I wouldn't do this on a laptop. The main problem is that the laptop's cooling system isn't designed for this. Ethereum mining on laptops was profitable due to the high profits, and the laptop paid for itself within six months. You can configure multiple CPU cores for continuous mining, but I don't see the point.

[Patikno]

Both are miracles, but as it turns out, it's much more affordable to believe in the bitcoin miracle than the traditional lottery one. In ~5 years, you would have spent around $300 to play bitcoin lottery every day, whereas traditional lottery would have costed you more than $2000. How much different would your life be without those $300? Maybe it's a miracle worth a shot?

What a great comparison the OP made, and I have a few comments, or questions regarding it.

1. As far as I know, mining has a diff (difficulty), meaning that as the hashrate increases, the diff also increases. So, does the increasing of the hashrate make it harder to hit the jackpot in Bitcoin mining? Or conversely, does the decreasing of the hashrate increase the chances?
2. Are you referring to solo mining ? If so, can we increase our chances by purchasing more of these mining devices? Is that like buying more lottery tickets?
3. If the chance of a miracle in Bitcoin (the mining) is greater, then shouldn't we choose to mine as you are referring to, rather than buying lottery tickets? and that is what you are implying, right?

By the way, I don't fully understand the mechanics of mining, but I do have a little experience with it, so I hope my statements, and questions don't stray from the topic. Please, Cmiiw.

[BlackHatCoiner]

1. As far as I know, mining has a diff (difficulty), meaning that as the hashrate increases, the diff also increases. So, does the increasing of the hashrate make it harder to hit the jackpot in Bitcoin mining? Or conversely, does the decreasing of the hashrate increase the chances?

Yes and yes.

2. Are you referring to solo mining ? If so, can we increase our chances by purchasing more of these mining devices? Is that like buying more lottery tickets?

Yes and yes. However, consider that most Bitaxes are mining on a mining pool like CKPool. That is not exactly "solo", but the specific pool rewards you 98% of the block reward if you solve it. You do have to trust it, though. You can setup your own CKPool instance and mine trustlessly, even though I wouldn't recommend it to the fullest unless you know what you're doing. (It'd be a pity if you solved a block, but your node couldn't broadcast it successfully, for example.)

3. If the chance of a miracle in Bitcoin (the mining) is greater, then shouldn't we choose to mine as you are referring to, rather than buying lottery tickets? and that is what you are implying, right?

I know. I agree.