Solo mining in Sep 2017

Is solo mining still doable today?

What is needed to tackle a whole block under a month alone, 100x Antminer S9, 100THash/s?

Another question, does location play a role in this? Would it matter if the "farm" is in Southern Africa away from most Bitcoin users in EU, US, Asia, would another miner that is closer to the "requester" always get the block first? Please advise!

emotality

Posted 2017-09-11T10:56:49.557

Reputation: 115

What is "needed" depends on how much money you want to earn. You can use a mining calculator to figure out how much that would be. – Nate Eldredge – 2017-09-11T13:49:19.953

Hi Nate. By needed, I meant be able to tackle a whole block alone in less than a month. I'll update my question, thanks! – emotality – 2017-09-11T14:32:22.490

The most valuable thing is a source of cheap electricity. – Greg Hewgill – 2017-09-11T20:47:07.857

Answers

To achieve a whole block solo in a month you're going to need about 1500 TH/s

https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators/bitcoin-mining-calculator/?h=1500000.00&p=2600.00&pc=0.10&pf=0.00&d=922724699725.96300000&r=12.50000000&er=4486.23010000&hc=0.00

Just to double check that: https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate

Total hashrate: 7Million TH/s divided by 6*24*365/12 = 4380 blocks a month = 1598 TH/s

So you need about 115x AntMiner S9s which cost about US$ 1,288 each, so US$ 148,120.

But then the last block generated US$ 60,900 of bitcoin (14.4BTC).

Would it matter if the farm is in Southern Africa away from anyone, would another miner that is closer always get the block first?

Closer to what? There is no centre. And as blocks take an average of 10 minutes to produce, and they are small (1MB), so while there are race conditions they are the same for everyone everywhere.

weston

Posted 2017-09-11T10:56:49.557

Reputation: 421

You pretty much answered my questions! :) Don't see anyone disagreeing with it, thanks! – emotality – 2017-09-12T12:51:11.780

@emotality cool, click the tick/check mark near the to accept the answer – weston – 2017-09-12T14:18:33.973

Note that the quoted hash rate means you will mine an average of one block per month. It follows a Poisson distribution, and there is a 37% chance you will mine no blocks. – Nate Eldredge – 2017-09-13T01:39:46.517

Location DOES matter for the price of your power. That basically defines your profit, high power rates will result in a big loss.

KittyCat

Posted 2017-09-11T10:56:49.557

Reputation: 101

Hi, thanks for your answer. But I meant location as in connection-wise not power-wise. – emotality – 2017-09-12T12:52:54.230

Internet connection latency hardly matters. As long as you have a reliable connection you'll be fine. – Vadoff – 2017-10-04T10:26:33.597