Is solo mining better than pool mining for Monero?
Solo mining is usually not better than pool mining if you want regular Monero payouts from a typical home computer. It gives you full control and the whole reward when you find a block, but you could wait months or years—and you are never guaranteed to find one. For many home miners, P2Pool offers a useful middle ground: shared mining rewards without a central pool holding your earnings.
What “better” means for your earnings
Mining means using your computer to help secure Monero by trying to produce its next block of transactions. Your hashrate is the number of mining calculations your device can perform each second.
With solo mining, you receive nothing until you find a valid block. When you do, you receive its full reward: normally the 0.6 XMR base reward plus transaction fees.
A pool combines your work with other miners’ work. When the pool finds blocks, it divides rewards according to contributed work.
Neither approach makes your computer inherently more powerful. With equal performance, your long-term expected reward is broadly similar before fees and operating costs. The big difference is variance: how uneven and unpredictable your actual earnings are.
- Solo: rare, larger rewards.
- Pool: smaller, more frequent rewards, depending on pool size and payout rules.
Why solo mining can mean a very long wait
Monero produces a block about every two minutes across the entire network—not every two minutes for each miner.
Your rough average waiting time is:
2 minutes × network hashrate ÷ your hashrate
Use consistent units and check a live explorer for network hashrate. Network difficulty—the measure of how hard finding a block is—adjusts every block, so estimates change.
An average wait is not a deadline. Even after that time passes, you may still have found nothing. Previous unsuccessful work does not make your next attempt more likely to succeed.
Solo mining makes sense if you value independence, can tolerate unpredictable income, and are comfortable paying electricity costs without receiving rewards for a long stretch.
A central pool or P2Pool?
A traditional pool is generally simpler to start with. However, its operator controls payout accounting, may charge fees, and usually sets a minimum withdrawal amount. You must trust the operator to pay you correctly.
P2Pool is a decentralized pool: miners coordinate without one company controlling their reward balance. It has no pool-operator fee, and rewards go directly to eligible miners when Monero blocks are found.
For lower hashrates, P2Pool Mini can make participation more practical. Still, neither P2Pool nor Mini guarantees daily payouts. Your contributions must qualify under its reward system, and the pool must find blocks.
P2Pool payouts are newly mined coins, so they remain locked for 60 Monero blocks—roughly two hours.
Where running a node fits
A node checks Monero’s rules and keeps a copy of its transaction history. Running one supports independent verification, but it does not earn mining rewards by itself.
Solo mining through your own node gives you strong independence. P2Pool also needs access to a suitable Monero node; running your own avoids relying on someone else’s service.
Both require more setup than joining a traditional pool. Browser mining does not remove the underlying odds: check which pool receives your work, what fees apply, and how you get paid.
The bottom line
Choose solo mining for independence and the chance of a whole block reward—not steadier income. Choose a pool for smoother payouts, or P2Pool if you want shared rewards with less reliance on a central operator.
