Hey everyone,
I'm trying to grasp something about my bitcoin mining setup. I have this lottery machine running with a miner that has 4TH but I'm only using 1TH. The admin screen shows this thing called diffA. Right now, it's sitting at around 40 million. Every time I restart the miner, it resets to 0. When I check the difficulty for new blocks, it's around 40 billion. So, do I need to run my miner for weeks to get close to the current block difficulty, or am I totally missing something?
DiffA basically reflects how much work you've put into your mining. If you're solo mining, it doesn't really do much for you. Finding a block is all about chance. 1TH gives you a slim shot 1 in about 1 million to find a block in one day. If you’re in a pool, your earnings depend on the work sent to that pool. The miner just tracks your effort since you last fired it up.
Every share you mine is like a shot at finding a block. It’s a long shot, but it counts. And with 4TH, your chance for BTC is about 250,000 to 1 daily, so you’re really not likely to hit it big.
I'm solo mining too, thanks for the insights! I know the odds are super low, but I'm just fascinated by the whole process. I want to get a clearer picture of how bitcoin works, but sometimes the info out there is just too brief or doesn’t answer my specific questions.