Mining Solo on Your Own Node

I've had my bitcoin node up and running for a bit, and I've been wondering about solo mining to it. I thought that was the standard way back in the day, and it feels like the most decentralized method for the network. But nowadays, it seems like everyone just goes for mining pools, even when they're trying to mine solo. I even picked up a used S9 from eBay to experiment with this whole idea. But when I checked out solo.ckpool.org, I learned that you can't actually mine directly to your Bitcoin core node. Why is that the case? Is mining to your own node something that’s kinda faded away? How do these mining pools manage to do it? I mean, where else do they get the mining work if not from the node? Could someone break this down for me?

I will quote an excellent answer from BlackHatCoiner : Here you will find a topic related to your question : Solo mining using Bitcoin Core wallet Here the list of topics related on solo mining I made some months ago, you will find some links to self-hosted solo pools, and solo mining in general if you are interested in this subject : [MEGA TOPIC] SOLO MINING I think all these resources will give you an opportunity to do more researches and to understand the pro and coins of each solution possible

I don't think the above response will work but I think running BFGminer with a stratum proxy can mine you solo check this link below to get some idea - https://github.com/raspiblitz/raspiblitz/issues/414#issuecomment-471227225 Or run your own mining pool like yiimp you can download the open-source from the link below - https://github.com/tpruvot/yiimp

The main issue of solo mining really just comes down to the fact that the odds of someone just running an old miner or two miners of finding a block is just about zero. Not saying that you can't get lucky, it's just that at doing it this way you are more or less just playing the lottery. Joining a pool at least you have somewhat regular payouts. Solo mine, and you may never see anything. The other issue also becomes mining to your own node means you have to make sure that you've got enough performance on the machine running it that it could keep up with everything and an Internet bandwidth that if you do find a block it doesn't get orphaned because some other pool found it but your block didn't propagate. People who have been running pools for years could tell you all the pitfalls of doing it. Drive issues, communications issues, and hosts of other things. For the one or two percent (or less) that solo pools will charge if you do find a block you are probably better off just giving up those small amounts if you do happen to find a block then loosing the entire thing because you made a configuration mistake. -Dave

I dont really care about profits with this s9 it got it for barely 100 bucks. i have good asics that i expect profit from. this s9 is a sorta toy to mess around with because i am interested in how bitcoin works on a technical level, from what i understand it that miners connect to nodes so that the nodes can tell miners what to mine without nodes the miners would be bricks. But from what i am hearing is that bitcoin core nodes don't natively support just strait up miners connecting to them and mining right away. In this regard i am confused because how else would this be done?

Well, if you don't ever find a block, you aren't really doing anything useful solo mining - so profits are relevant Your node being a node, with or without mining, is the same use to the network, unless you do find a block. i.e. you aren't securing the network unless you do find a block. Keeping the network alive by running a node is all you are doing with a low solo hash rate, so your usefulness to the network is the same without solo mining. ... and if you do find just that one and only block solo mining to your own node, well, cool ...

Just a suggestion: you mention you're learning, why not mine on the testnet instead? The diff is still pretty high for a TEST network, but with an S9 you should be able to mine a couple of blocks once in a while (with allmost 0 block reward nowadays), but atleast you'll be able to see everything in action If the testnet cannot entice you, there are a couple altcoins that are clones from bitcoin and use sha256d as POW algo with a much lower diff than bitcoin's main net... The income will be peanuts aswell tough. https://coinmarketcap.com/view/sha-256/ I used to mine peercoin with a usb block eruptor back in the days, when the bitcoin networks diff was waaaay to high to use an usb miner, but on peercoin it was still low enough... Don't know if this is still valid tough!

Using BFG as a stratum proxy will work. You cannot use GBT with Bitcoin Core because most of the mining clients are affected by the change in the coinbase data in Bitcoin Core when using Bitcoin Core with GBT. Run BFGMiner with stratum port flag, and specify a port for your ASICs to connect to. If they're on the same network, then you should be able to connect the S9 to your BFGminer with a proxy. There's plenty of tutorials online for this. Otherwise, running it on Testnet is a better idea.

so in order for my asic to mine to my node i have to run a stratum? ive seen stratum urls many times before but never knew what the reason was or why they were important but it seems that without one you cant connect to a node? am i correct?

Ignore the nay-sayers. This is a fun and valuable exercise that every bitcoin mining enthusiast should try at some point. Bitcoin core does not have the stratum server that miners require. You need some additional software -- just build and run ckpool on your node. It was recently updated for this exact purpose. https://bitbucket.org/ckolivas/ckpool-solo/src/solobtc/ good luck!

GetBlockTemplate is broken with the outdated miners and most of them are not well maintained, the last time I checked. Stratum is a low latency and bandwidth protocol that is used to connect your ASICs to a server which is why it gets recommended more than any other protocol. Antminer doesn't support GBT as well, only Stratum. Your best chance is to run a stratum proxy, which can be done with BFGMiner.

I'm solo mining with an ESP32 and NerdMiner from github. It is just for the fun, of course. My ESP32 doesn't even go as high as some other ESP32 with an LCD from NerdMinerV2. I compiled some other older repo that was used to build NerdMinerv2 if I'm not mistaken!

For just learning purposes, yes,  testnet makes more sense then zero profit on bitcoin mainnet. If OP is really interested in learning, there are alternative sha256 coins,  for example,  Cheetahcoin is solo mining friendly coin that  S9 or even gekko or TTBIT usb device can easily mine, and even encouraged by the algorithm on solo mining set up.

There are right about a dozen wrong statements in your comment, mining to your own node is still possible, using the word supported is rather wrong because that brings up a question; "supported by who"? Mining to ones node will always be possible given how BTC works, it's just a question of feasibility and nothing more. Every block found on the network is found by a single small miner, many people mined individually and managed to find blocks, some did that with USB sticks that don't mine faster than a few gigahashes per second, besides, we don't know OP' hashrate, he could be mining with 10EH worth of hashrate, so his chances of finding blocks mining to his node are a lot larger than the changes of couple mining pools combined. The only drawback of mining to your own node would be the reliability aspect, mining isn't just about getting lucky and hitting a block, you need to stay constantly synced with other nodes, and you need to have a very fast connection to other nodes (especially the mining ones), block downloading, processing, and prorogation are very sensitive and there is zero room for error, it's plain stupid to risk losing blocks by mining to a node that runs on an old laptop sitting in the garage hooked up to your not so reliable 10mbps ADSL.

Inaccurate, it was removed since built-in CPU mining on Bitcoin Core useless with existence of ASIC[1]. There's also concern with internet connection which leads to slower block propagation. Wrong, miner who connect to pool doesn't need to run their own node since pool use Stratum protocol. Also wrong, it brings centralization concern where pool could perform passive attack such as intentionally exclude certain transaction. [1] https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.13.0#removal-of-internal-miner

This is another proof that texts written with an AI tool should not be trusted. In the same way, those who use AI are like the same soulless robots who have empty heads. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5456516.msg62617386#msg62617386

Micro $3 Bitcoin miners won’t make bank, but that’s not the point: Inventors Pocket-sized Bitcoin miners are a stand against the “secrecy and exclusivity” of the Bitcoin mining industry, according to their inventors. While lacking in performance, micro Bitcoin mining devices should be seen as a stand against the Bitcoin ecosystem’s purportedly biggest flaw, its inventors argue. Micro Bitcoin mining devices — often open-source and pocket-sized — have been serving a niche part of the market, offering buyers a fully assembled device or a do-it-yourself-kit to mine Bitcoin (BTC) solo. Speaking to Cointelegraph, developers behind these kits admit that buyers won’t likely see much profit but argue that it’s important to fight the “secrecy and exclusivity” of the Bitcoin mining industry. One company, BitMaker, recently claimed that one could be made for as little as $3, offering an output of 50 kilohashes per second. https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/64f69751ee3a4a5a9190e64a/

Any guide on on how to set up your own stratum address? I have a bitcoin core running on testnet.