How it works
Solo mining explained from start to finish. Understand how your miner connects, how blocks are found, and how you get paid.
Six steps to your first block
Create your account
Sign up with just an email address. No KYC, no identity verification, no waiting period. Your account is ready in seconds.
Set up your wallet
Add a wallet address for each coin you want to mine. You must use a wallet where you control the private keys — never an exchange address. When your miner finds a block, the reward goes directly to this address.
Configure your miner
Point your ASIC at the stratum endpoint for your coin. Use your wallet address as the username and any value as the password. The part after the dot in your username is your worker name — use it to identify different machines.
Submitting shares
Once connected, your miner starts hashing and submitting shares. Shares are proof that your hardware is working. The pool uses them to estimate your hashrate and track your contribution. VarDiff automatically adjusts share difficulty to keep submissions at an optimal rate.
Finding a block
Every share has a chance of being a valid block. When one of your shares meets the full network difficulty, your miner has found a block. The pool immediately broadcasts it to the network. After enough confirmations, the block reward matures.
Getting paid
Since this is a solo pool, the entire block reward (minus our 1% fee) goes to your wallet. No splitting with other miners, no minimum payout threshold, no holding period. The reward is yours as soon as the network confirms the block.
What happens when you find a block
Finding a block is the moment everything pays off. Here is the full lifecycle from discovery to your wallet.
Block discovered
Your miner submits a share that meets the full network difficulty. The pool recognizes this as a valid block.
Broadcast to network
The pool immediately broadcasts the block to the blockchain network. Other nodes begin verifying it.
Confirmations begin
Each new block mined on top of yours adds a confirmation. The reward is locked until enough confirmations accumulate (typically 100 for BTC, fewer for other coins).
Reward matures
After reaching the required confirmation count, the coinbase reward matures and becomes spendable.
Payout sent
The pool sends 99% of the block reward to your configured wallet address. The 1% fee is deducted automatically. No action needed on your part.
Solo vs shared pool
The key difference: in a shared pool, rewards are split among all participants. In a solo pool, the entire reward goes to whoever finds the block.
| Feature | Solo Pool | Shared Pool |
|---|---|---|
| Block reward | 100% goes to the finder (minus 1% fee) | Split proportionally among all participants |
| Payout frequency | Only when you find a block | Regular, predictable payouts |
| Income variance | High — long gaps between large payouts | Low — steady, smaller payouts |
| Best for | Large miners who can absorb variance | Smaller miners who need consistent income |
| Minimum hashrate | Any hashrate works — lower = longer wait | Any hashrate works — lower = smaller share |
| Fee structure | 1% of block reward only when found | 1–3% of every payout, always charged |
| Privacy | Your blocks, your wallet, no shared data | Pool sees all miners' contributions |
Bottom line: Solo mining is higher risk, higher reward. If you have significant hashrate and can afford to wait for blocks, solo mining maximizes your earnings per block. If you need steady daily income, a shared pool may be more suitable.
The 1% fee explained
Bitmern Solo charges a flat 1% fee on block rewards. Here is exactly how it works.
When is the fee charged?
Only when you find a block. If you mine for a week without finding one, you pay nothing. The fee is deducted from the block reward before it is sent to your wallet.
What does the fee cover?
Infrastructure costs — servers, bandwidth, monitoring, stratum protocol handling, VarDiff computation, block broadcasting, and the real-time dashboard. No hidden charges or additional fees.
Payout examples
| Coin | Block Reward | 1% Fee | You Receive |
|---|---|---|---|
| BTC | 3.125 BTC | 0.03125 BTC | 3.09375 BTC |
| LTC | 6.25 LTC | 0.0625 LTC | 6.1875 LTC |
| DOGE | 10,000 DOGE | 100 DOGE | 9,900 DOGE |
| BCH | 3.125 BCH | 0.03125 BCH | 3.09375 BCH |
| DGB | 665 DGB | 6.65 DGB | 658.35 DGB |
Our infrastructure
Bitmern Solo is built on production-grade infrastructure designed for reliability and low latency.
Miningcore backend
Our mining engine is built on Miningcore, a high-performance, open-source mining pool framework. It handles stratum protocol communication, share validation, block submission, and payout processing.
Stratum protocol
All connections use the standard stratum mining protocol, compatible with every major ASIC manufacturer. Multiple ports per coin with different starting difficulties let you optimize for your hardware.
VarDiff on every port
Variable Difficulty automatically tunes share difficulty to your miner's speed. Whether you run a 1 TH/s Bitaxe or a 234 TH/s S21 Pro, VarDiff ensures optimal share submission rates.
Dallas datacenter
Our mining backend runs in a Dallas, TX datacenter with enterprise-grade networking. The dashboard is served globally via Vercel's edge network for instant page loads from anywhere.
Ready to start?
Create a free account and start submitting shares in minutes.