Oddbean

Reminder.. If your BitAxe is doing about 1TH/second hashrate, thats roughly 1 in 1 Billionth of the network hashrate. Odds of winning ... - Powerball Jackpot: 1 in 292 million - Megamillions Jackpot: 1 in 302 million nostr:nevent1qqstuahkydmc6ww6kvck996xkzdj4g8nqe47ja2l56ssshldkqv0nkcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsyg8esnhpkzfjfq5e0hfclxcmz9c09z7mytatnm20r893x2kwfg3jrypsgqqqqqqs8sl6um

More math... Assuming a Bitaxe uses 20 watts, thats about 3⅓ watts of power per block, or about 480 watts per day. Both powerball and megamillions appear to cost 2 USD tokens per play. If someones power costs are 15 cents/kWh, then 2 USD tokens would buy about 2 weeks of running a BitAxe. So we can compare the winnings of a BitAxe over time with powerball tickets. If one buys a powerball ticket every two weeks, with the odds of winning any prize at ~1 in 25, the overall typical loss through the year would be about $45 to $48 (based on a single win from 26 tickets purchased and that win resulting in low value $4 or $7 prizes) On the other hand, a BitAxe will very likely lose $52 per year (its power cost is roughly 1 USD per week) unless its participating in a pool to get gradual payouts over time based on shares. Assuming pool participation, and zero growth of the network, and ignoring pool fees, it would receive about 1/1,000,000,000 subsidy and tx fees per day. At 3.125 BTC per block the subsidy portion would be 3.125 * 144 * 100000000 sats per day. Thats 45 billion sats spread across the whole mining network. Knowing a BitAxe is currently 1/1000000000 of this gives us an expected earnings of 45 sats per day. Converted to fiat at a $100000 exchange rate for simplicity, this results in a loss of about 69 cents per week, or about $36/year

buying lotto tickets not only gives you small chance to win max taxed money, but you are also donating money to your local oligarch, keeping their network of agents and vassals strong. many good reasons to buy lotto tickets over solo mining. 😅

I love that everyone immediately went to "...but every 10 min". i know i did. Then i wondered how hard it would be for the lotto to make a 10 min draw product..... then i realized that every corner store would need a lounge like Caesars palace to host that degeneracy

The better thing to find out is how many people need to run bitaxes for the solo miners to have a significant chance, like 5%, to mine a block every ten minutes. How many bitaxes for every 1 in a 1000, 500, 100, 50, etc. blocks to be solo mined?

I did some quick rough math, and came up with the following. For a bitaxe to find a block once in each interval, you'd need somewhere around the listed number of bitaxes on the network with the current hashrate. 1 block per day - 5 million Bitaxes 7 days - 700 thousand 30 days - 160 thousand 1 year - 15 thousand How many bitaxes are out there now? Maybe a few hundred to a thousand or so? And we're only adding more.

It's way more than 4 figures to 1 unless your way of buying lotto tickets is to bribe an inside man at the gas station to keep giving you one every week Lifetime of the bitaxe vs lifetime of the lotto ticket

If you forgo purchasing a BitAxe, and instead use that $100 to $200 capex expenditure to buy Bitcoin, you can then spend $2 every other week as opex on a powerball lottery ticket. You still have a chance to make big mullah, but you've also guaranteed future value by setting aside sats today The odds favor that approach even more as overall network hash goes up along with utility bills. Extra benefit to the lottery ticket is that it doesnt make noise at all, can be burned, crumpled and thrown at someone to get their attention.