5 Solo Bitcoin Mining Mistakes That Will Cost You (Beginner Guide)

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]So, in this video, we're going to be going over the mistakes that you shouldn't make when you first start getting into solo Bitcoin mining or just Bitcoin mining with the solo Bitaxe Nerd QX miners. We're going to be going over five mistakes that I recommend you not to make. And that's kind of from past experience. And we're going to cover off kind of why and what type of things I would do if I had to redo again. And then you guys can let me know kind of feedback in the comments for that. So, before that, I'd like to thank the sponsor of this video, Crypto Miner Bros. Since 2018, cryptominerbros.com has been the premier site for top-tier crypto mining hardware, earning the trust of miners across the globe. The prices displayed on their site cover shipping and DDP straight to your doorstep, ensuring no unexpected costs at checkout. They deliver to over 100 countries and even provide lower invoicing options to help you cut down on customs fees.

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[00:01:29]Link in the description. Today's video, we are going to be walking you through the mistakes or kind of the beginner mistakes that people make when they first start solo mining Bitcoin. And I'm going to be running through a couple of mistakes that I've made in the past and kind of giving you knowledge on why you shouldn't do those things. So, today's video, we're just going to be covering off them. And the first one I start with is always when people are going to start going into solo Bitcoin mining, always start off with a Bitaxe. So, there's a load of machines out there that can do high terahash. You have the Nerd QX right there. You have things like the Nerd Octa X, even the Gamma Turbo, which is recently which is recently released.

[00:02:12]However, to actually start learning, you need to buy one of these, but I recommend always going with the Bitaxe first as it's very cheap. You can pick one up for maybe $100 these days, even lower if you're looking in the right place. But those are the most simple ones to start. There's a lot of information out there on all of this, especially for the regular Bitaxe Gamma.

[00:02:34]Now, if you can get one for a little bit cheaper, like maybe a Bitaxe Supra, I don't know if they sell them anymore, but potentially you could get one of those as well. Just to start you off, get you interested in it, get you thinking about kind of upgrades and things like that, and just the knowledge needed to actually run Bitcoin mining.

[00:02:52]If you've never been introduced into cryptocurrency before, the Bitaxe is the best starting place. So, so first mistake that I see people asking is like should you buy a Nerd QX if you're just starting out or should you buy the latest Gamma Turbo maybe? I think recently there's a lot more miners that you can go for. When I first started out, there was only the Bitaxe, but now there's a lot more that you can go for, so people are kind of confused at which one they should buy. But if you are really starting out and you have no mining experience, always go with the Bitaxe and learn the basics from the Bitaxe and then move up into bigger miners like the Nerd QX, like the Nerd Octa X, or even the Gamma Turbo that you see there.

[00:03:33]Because the thing is, the Bitaxe is going to give you an introduction into it. You're probably going to do a lot of research onto it, and it'll teach you about pools, it'll teach you about how mining actually works, the difficulty on the network, and then you can look to kind of upgrade the hash rate. It also is very low power, so a lot of people kind of don't think about the power situation, but if you obviously get more hash rate, you're going to spend more money. For example, the Nerd QX is about four times in terms of the power cost as a Bitaxe.

[00:04:04]So, you'd rather kind of mess around on a Bitaxe, find out if you want to actually start solo mining before you go in and buy a bunch of terahash and then you realize that you can't actually pay for it with your electricity price. So, if you are going to be buying it, look into the Bitaxe first, then kind of figure out your electricity cost for the Bitaxe, and then make a decision whether you want to go for more terahash or a more efficient miner that is out there.

[00:04:30]So, a second mistake as well is the upgrade. So, you have a bunch of upgrades that you can see here. So, this is an ice tower cooler with a Noctua fan.

[00:04:39]And this is just kind of a regular Bitaxe with a regular fan on it.

[00:04:44]However, this is obviously an upgraded cooling system for your Bitaxe. This costs around $30 for the whole rig there, plus maybe $5 for the fan or $10 maybe. And these are really kind of just to lower the noise consumption for the fan. That's what the Noctua does. And then for the cooling, it just allows you to have a little bit more terahash.

[00:05:08]Accessories are always optional. That's the mistake that a lot of people make is they think they have to buy these when in theory or in reality, you're only going to get a little bit extra hash rate from a better cooler. Plus, you shouldn't really push the overclocks way too high on something like a Bitaxe because you're just going to end up burning out the chip at some point and it'll get worse over time. So, when it comes to accessories, just remember they're always optional. You can get loads of different heat sinks, which we'll show you now.

[00:05:40]We have things like the Copperzilla and the ice tower cooler which I just showed you. And then there's kind of a load of aluminum ones as well. This Nerd QX is also upgraded to a copper heat sink. So, there's loads of things that you can upgrade with, but realistically, they're only going to increase the terahash or your hash rate by maybe one to 200 gigahash in terms of just regular running without overclocks. So, I wouldn't recommend like dumping all of your money into accessories.

[00:06:10]Even stuff like this LAN mode, which is technically an accessory, this is great because it gives people like if they have bad internet connection or they want to wire it up to a LAN, they're not near their router. It allows you to be further away from your router. That's a good accessory, but only if you are further away from your router. If you're not, then it doesn't really make much of a difference if the Bitaxe is sitting right next to your router. So, there are reasons for the accessories or for example, if you live in a hot country, you might want a copper heat sink like you see down there.

[00:06:41]Those type of things. So, it's very dependent on what you want, but remember they're all kind of optional things. You don't necessarily need them. I kind of went on a whole buying spree of getting all these upgrades, obviously to make videos, but I also thought that it was going to get me way more hash rate in the kind of coming months. But realistically, I didn't actually see much of an increase in the hash rate. It was more about the efficiency. And then I realized the efficiency doesn't really matter on something like a Bitaxe. The efficiency save is only around 2 watts of power, which doesn't really make a difference. And we have obviously tested these and we've used them in the past, so I mean, it's half for the videos and half for, you know, my own kind of consumption of actually putting them on Bitaxes and things like that. For the most part, I have realized or come to the realization I'm just buying parts and it's just an extra cost for not really that much in terms of the savings from either the efficiency or the wattage that's going on on the Bitaxe.

[00:07:39]So, for example, like I say, the Noctua fan, that's the main upgrade with the Noctua fan is just that it's going to be more silent. So, if you want something more silent, you go with the Noctua fan.

[00:07:48]If you wanted better internet connection, you go with the LAN mode. If you want slightly better cooling on your Bitaxe cuz you're in a hot country, you go with a better heat sink. Those type of things. It's very dependent on what you actually need in your regional area or even in your home. But don't go buying it just because somebody else bought it. Even with this Nerd QX copper heat sink upgrade that you see here, it's not really necessary. It doesn't really decrease that much in terms of the cooling, so there's not really much need for it. Obviously, we do it to show people that you can upgrade it on the channel, but the other Nerd QX that we have runs perfectly fine at nearly the same hash rate and wattage even though it has a smaller cooler.

[00:08:31]Okay, so that's number two, I guess. And moving on to number three is mining any other coin but Bitcoin. On this channel, we have been on a massive kind of arc of mining every kind of SHA-256 coin.

[00:08:46]And I can just tell you now, it's not really worth it. You might as well just stick all of your hash rate onto Bitcoin. People like to think that they're making some profitability mining DigiByte or things like that. There's potential for Bitcoin Cash because of the profitability or / the odds cuz it's way better in terms of the odds. You shouldn't mess around with all these other coins. They're on SHA-256. For example, you can mine pretty much any other coin that is SHA-256 on the Bitaxe, which includes Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Fractal Bitcoin, eCash, DigiByte, all of them.

[00:09:20]And take it from me, I've spent way too long kind of mining every other coin. I also do make videos on these coins, so that's why I'm showing you them on the channel. So, there are guides on how to mine them, but personally, after a kind of a year of mining, we're just sticking it all back onto Bitcoin because we're trying to go for the Bitcoin block. And the reason for that is if you're new into Bitcoin mining, the Bitcoin difficulty, you have to hit above it to hit a block. So, if you are mining onto DigiByte or Bitcoin Cash and you hit a difficulty that is higher than the Bitcoin difficulty, but you're mining to a Bitcoin Cash network, that will only gain you a Bitcoin Cash block.

[00:10:02]However, you then missed out on a Bitcoin block. So, you've missed out on a full Bitcoin block because you were mining something else. And that's the main reason that you stick all of these only onto Bitcoin. So, don't mess around with any of that. Maybe just for if you're starting a YouTube channel, I guess, make a guide on it. But, apart from that, just stick all of your miners onto Bitcoin. Don't mess around with any of the other altcoins that are on the SHA-256. Okay, so that's mainly the third mistake, I guess, that people make. So, the fourth mistake, I would say, is the the buying of Bitcoin miners, so expanding too quickly, buying too many of them.

[00:10:39]Kind of thinks in your mind or kind of portrays to you in your mind that you are going to hit Bitcoin block if you keep buying more of these. As you go up in the chip number, you're getting closer and closer to a S21 hashboard.

[00:10:53]So, you might as well just go for an S21 hashboard at that point. However, it was kind of at the start of solo Bitcoin mining that I thought, "Oh, do you know what? We're going to try and do this, and we're going to hit a block, and it's going to be great."

[00:11:06]But, I realized the odds, and you should do your research on the odds of Bitcoin mining, because the odds are extremely extremely low. And for the most part, if you buy a Bitcoin miner, probability is that you're never going to find a block. So, you see all these miners on the board here. You have the Nerd Miner QX, the Bit Axe Gamma Turbo, the Bit Axe, the Raspberry Pi. Don't know why that's there, but Raspberry Pi.

[00:11:31]The odds are that these will never find a block, even if they're running for thousands and thousands of years.

[00:11:38]Typically, you'll never find a block on one of these.

[00:11:41]The whole reason of it is that you do have a chance to find a block, but once you get down into the odds, it's astronomical that you will actually find a block. So, we're just doing videos on them because I want people to learn about them. But, once you start buying one of them and thinking, "Ah, there's potential to mine a block." And then you buy another one, you're speaking in the thousands of years. Like, if you're mining for a thousand years, you might never hit a difficulty that's anywhere close to the Bitcoin network difficulty at this point. So, I know that there is a chance, but I'm just warning you that everything that you buy potentially has lost its value straight away, and you're probably never going to mine a Bitcoin block. Hence why people go for those altcoins which we just talked about. The odds are astronomically low, so I wouldn't recommend going all in on Bitcoin mining or solo Bitcoin mining cuz the odds are just not in your favor for actually hitting a Bitcoin block.

[00:12:34]So, that's a mistake that a lot of people make, and I understand it because people think in their minds that they are going to hit a block. It's like kind of mining for gold. Like, if you go mining, you might find some gold or or you might not. And the chances are you're not going to find any gold.

[00:12:50]So, that's the same thing with Bitcoin mining. So, that's the fourth mistake.

[00:12:53]Don't get sucked into the whole you're going to find a Bitcoin block cuz you're most likely not going to buy one. Only get into this as a strict hobby. Don't think that you're going to mine a block with one of these solo miners. There are stories of people out there hitting them, but you probably just want to go for maybe a Bit Axe and maybe a Nerd Miner QX, and that's it. We have just something to mess around with, kind of mine onto different things, kind of look at the difficulty, and then that might get you into actually fully Bitcoin mining overall. Okay, last thing you need to know about this is the kind of five top five kind of mistakes is pool mining. Don't go for pool mining because you are then, same thing as altcoins, you're going to risk doing the difficulty that's above the network difficulty, and then you're going to lose out on that Bitcoin block. So, I recommend not doing that. And mainly, I recommend also going or looking at pools that are around your area, or at least in your region.

[00:13:52]Kind of sifting through that, finding out what the best latency is to the pool, and just sticking with that one.

[00:13:57]Don't try to switch pools whatsoever because mainly, you're just going to want to stick with a verifiable pool, like public pool or solo CK pool, and that's going to be probably your best bet for Bitcoin mining is going to one of those pools. You can also set up your own node to mine to your own pool. So, that's why the Raspberry Pi is here. We do have a video on that, and that kind of gives you more anonymity, I guess, and you are running a node to the Bitcoin network, so you're securing the network while's also mining to it. So, that's kind of more decentralized than actually sticking it to a pool, but that requires kind of a little bit more technical experience. Just get involved with the Bit Axe first, and then you can move on to running your own Raspberry Pi node. But, I am highly recommending that you do not pool mine with any of these.

[00:14:45]It's not going to be profitable at all, and most likely, you're going to get pennies for what you're actually putting into it. The only caveat to that is Parasite Pool. I do like their payout in terms of you can make some profitability, but you also have a chance to hit a block. So, if you hit a block, you get one Bitcoin. However, if you don't hit a block, you get a split of the other two-thirds of the Bitcoin block. I like the idea of that, and I also think it's a great idea. We have previously mined to Parasite Pool. It's the only kind of caveat to pool mining that I do see because you still have a bigger reward if you do hit a block, and you're not missing out on the whole block for solo Bitcoin mining.