Struggling to choose between solo & pool mining? 
Solo mining offers bigger rewards but takes patience.
Pool mining gives steady payouts.
Our latest guide breaks down pros, cons & ideal setups for both! Find your perfect mining strategy today.
As cryptocurrency mining grows in popularity and complexity, both new and seasoned miners face a critical decision—should they mine solo or join a mining pool? Each approach comes with its own set of benefits and drawbacks that can dramatically affect profitability, consistency, and the miner’s overall experience.
What Is Solo Mining?
Solo mining is easy to understand, it is individual mining for crypto miner’s own. You can even think of solo mining as a mining pool. As long as you mine the crypto block reward, deduct a small part of the coins allocated to the foundation, promotion team, etc., and the rest is yours. But solo mining has extremely high requirements. Your hard disk capacity must be large. If your hard disk capacity is small, you cannot produce blocks, and if you cannot produce blocks, you will not have any income.
What Is Pooled Mining?
As more and more crypto miners join the mining team, the capacity of the entire network becomes larger and larger, and the probability of individuals (especially miners with smaller hard disk capacity) mining alone to obtain block rewards becomes lower and lower. In order to solve this problem, mining pools appear. Mining pools are actually a collection of hard disk capacity. The hard disk capacity of an individual is weak. If everyone is gathered together and everyone’s capacity is concentrated together to participate in mining, the probability of mining to obtain block rewards will be very high. This is the origin of mining pools. So does the mining pool also allocate all mining income to miners (excluding the coins of the foundation and promotion team)? No, mining pools also have different income distribution models.
Pros and Cons of Solo Mining
Advantages
- Full block reward: If you successfully mine a block on your own, you receive 100% of the reward and transaction fees – nothing to share.
- No pool fees: Mining pools often charge fees (usually 1%–3%). Solo mining allows you to avoid these fees entirely.
- Full autonomy: You control your mining settings, including software configuration, hardware optimization, and wallet management.
- Increased privacy: No need to submit hash rate data or account details to third-party platforms.
Disadvantages
- Low success rate.
- High infrastructure costs.
- Technical Complexity.
Choose the Right Bitcoin Miner For Solo Mining
1）Bitmain Antminer S21 Hyd
Bitmain Antminer S21 Hyd is a hydro-cooling ASIC miner designed for SHA-256, specifically for solo mining bitcoin for professional cryptominers. It provides a maximum hashrate of 335Th/s, power consumption of 5,360W, and has an energy efficiency of 16J/Th.
335Th High hahsrate means that more hash calculations can be done per unit of time, thus increasing the chances of mining blocks.
2）Canaan Avalon Q
Canaan Avalon Q is a compact home miner designed for SHA-256, specifically for BTC (Bitcoin). It provides a maximum hashrate of 90Th/s, power consumption of 1674W, and has an energy efficiency of 0.019j/Gh.
Canaan Avalon Q maintains an excellent silent design while maintaining a high hashrate. It adopts advanced noise reduction technology, for the home miner who wants to place a bitcoin mining device at home for mining, the AvalonQ miner is certainly an option worth considering.
If you want to know more about solomining machine models and seek satisfactory mining machine services, please contact Yesmining for help!
Pros and Cons of Pooled Mining
Advantages
Stable payouts: Miners receive small, regular rewards proportional to their hashrate, providing a predictable cash flow.
Lower barriers to entry: Even miners with limited hardware can participate and profit, making this an ideal choice for beginners.
Simplified setup: Most pools offer user-friendly dashboards and step-by-step guides for quick onboarding.
Community and support: Pools typically maintain online forums, customer service, and documentation to help troubleshoot and improve performance.
Disadvantages
Shared rewards: Because you share the effort with many miners, individual payouts are significantly less than mining solo.
Service fees: Fees charged by pool operators reduce overall revenue.
Centralization risk: Large pools that control a large portion of the network hashrate can pose a risk to the decentralization of the blockchain.
Reliance on pool performance:
| Feature | Solo Mining | Pooled Mining |
|---|---|---|
| Block Reward | Full 100% | Shared based on hash contribution |
| Fees | None | Typically 1%-3% |
| Payout Frequency | Infrequent, high-value | Frequent, smaller payouts |
| Setup Complexity | High (requires full node setup) | Low (simple configuration) |
| Equipment Requirement | Very high | Low to moderate |
| Technical Skill Needed | Advanced | Beginner-friendly |
| Risk Level | High (possible no income) | Low (predictable income) |
We recommend these mining pools that are popular among most miners. They have certain guarantees for security and profitability: F2Pool, Binance Pool, and AntPool. Which mining pool do you prefer? Share your thoughts and recommendations with fellow miners in the comments!
Which one should you choose?
Choose solo mining if:
You operate multiple top-tier ASIC miners.
You have access to very cheap or free electricity.
You have experience running full nodes and configuring hardware.
You are willing to go long term without paying in exchange for the possibility of a large payout.
Choose pooled mining if:
You are new to mining.
You have limited hardware or a small operation.
You prefer a steady, predictable income.
You want an easier, faster setup with community support.
If a pool experiences downtime, a network attack, or mismanagement, your revenue and mining efforts will suffer.
Whether you’re leaning towards solo mining or joining a pool, having the right equipment is crucial. Buy the best-selling mining machines now, Yesmining helps you find the perfect mining solution for your needs.