Bitcoin mining is dominated by industrial farms – and yet small solo miners keep winning full block rewards. According to data from Soloblocks.io, solo-style miners found 36 blocks between 11 February and 7 November 2026, collecting about 113.15 BTC including fees, roughly $8.5 million.
What solo mining means
Most miners join a pool and receive small, steady payouts. A solo miner works alone: if the device finds a valid block, it collects the entire reward – currently 3.125 BTC plus transaction fees. In 2026, the rewards per block ranged from 3.1268 to 3.1968 BTC. If nothing is found, there is no payout at all.
Several services make this possible without running your own full node, including CKPool Solo (about 2% fee, 9 blocks in 2026), Public Pool (no fee, 5 blocks, including three on Umbrel home nodes), Braiins Solo and Parasite Pool (5 blocks each).
The momentum is growing
The finds are unevenly spread: none in March, only one each in August and September, but eight in October and already seven in the first week of November. Not every "solo" winner is a hobbyist, though. Soloblocks.io also lists small farms with 153.7 PH/s and 540 PH/s among the finders.
The hardware on the desk
Typical home devices are small, quiet and energy-efficient compared with industrial machines:
- Bitaxe Gamma: about 1.2 TH/s at 17–20 W
- Bitaxe Naja Duo: about 4.4 TH/s at 42 W
- NerdQAxe++ Rev 7: about 4.8 TH/s
- Canaan Avalon Nano 3S: 6 TH/s at 140 W – also usable as a small space heater
The honest maths
With a network hashrate of around 1,000 EH/s, a 10 TH/s device would statistically need about 1,900 years to find a block; a 1.2 TH/s Bitaxe more than 15,000 years. Even a miner with about 581 TH/s has, according to the CKPool operator, roughly a 1-in-35 chance per year.
The electricity bill is the other side: at $0.15 per kWh, an Avalon Nano 3S costs about $184 a year to run, while its probability-weighted reward is only around $75. Industrial miners pay about $0.07 per kWh or less.
Why people do it anyway
Solo mining is not a business model – it is closer to a lottery ticket that also teaches how Bitcoin works. Home miners learn about hashrate, difficulty and nodes, some reuse the waste heat in winter, and every independent miner adds a little to the decentralisation of the network. Anyone who tries it should treat the electricity as a hobby expense and any block as a bonus.
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