Let's run the numbers honestly. Home mining with a Bitaxe is not passive income. But understanding exactly what the odds are, and why people do it anyway, gives you the right frame to enjoy it.
The Solo Mining Odds
The probability of finding a Bitcoin block is determined by the network difficulty. Here's how to calculate your expected time to find a solo block:
Gamma 601 example (early 2026):
Network difficulty: ~110,000,000,000,000 (110 trillion)
Your hash rate: 1,200,000,000,000 H/s (1.2 TH/s)
Network hashrate: ~800 EH/s
Your share: ~0.00000000015%
Expected time to find a block: roughly 12,000 years
That number is confronting. But here's what it means in practice:
- It's a mean, not a guarantee. The actual time could be next week, or never.
- Each hash is independent. Your miner doesn't "build up" toward a win, every attempt has identical odds.
- Solo block finds by home miners do happen. There are well-documented cases of modest setups finding blocks.
The right mental model is a lottery where you buy thousands of tickets per second, each with a 1-in-very-large-number chance. The jackpot is real. The odds are honest.
Pool Mining Expectations
In a pool, your expected earnings are proportional to your contribution. At ~1.2 TH/s versus a pool with 10,000 TH/s total:
- Your share: 0.012% of every block reward
- Your cut per block: ~0.000387 BTC ≈ ~$54 AUD at $140,000/BTC
- Expected daily earnings: less than a cent per day
Most pools have minimum payout thresholds (e.g. 0.001 BTC ≈ $140 AUD) that a single Bitaxe would take years to accumulate. Pool mining with a Bitaxe is best understood as a monitoring tool, not an income stream.
Uptime and Reliability
A well-configured Bitaxe can run continuously for months without intervention:
- WiFi drops: Occasional reconnections are normal: the Bitaxe reconnects automatically
- Pool disconnections: Pools occasionally have issues. Having a backup pool configured is useful.
- Hardware longevity: ASICs running within thermal limits can operate for years
Monitoring
- AxeOS dashboard (your Bitaxe's local IP): hash rate, temperature, uptime, shares
- Pool dashboard: Look up your wallet address to confirm shares are arriving externally
The Right Mindset
The most satisfied home miners tend to be those who aren't primarily optimising for return on investment. They're running a Bitaxe because:
- It connects them tangibly to the Bitcoin network
- The electricity cost is genuinely low, approximately the cost of leaving a night light on
- Finding a block solo would be extraordinary, and it does happen to ordinary people
- They care about network decentralisation and want to contribute directly
Go in with those expectations and you'll be satisfied on day one and still mining years later. If you're expecting to offset your electricity bill or generate meaningful income, the math doesn't support it at Bitaxe scale, and that's worth knowing before you start.