Bitaxe, NerdMiner & Co.: What Lottery Mining Really Gets You (2026)
Quick summary: Bitaxe, NerdMiner and Avalon Nano are plug-in mini miners trying to find a Bitcoin block on their own. The odds are tiny, the jackpot enormous: currently 3.125 BTC (~$210,000). That is lottery mining — a lottery ticket that runs 24/7. This article runs the honest math on the real odds, who these devices make sense for, and what they are explicitly not: income.
Full transparency: we don’t sell these devices — our business is professional mining with hosting. The links marked with * lead to Amazon.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. The price doesn’t change for you.
What is lottery mining?
In normal bitcoin mining, miners join a pool: everyone bundles their hashrate and shares block rewards proportionally — luck becomes a plannable income stream. Solo mining flips that: you mine alone (in practice usually via a solo pool like Solo CKPool, which only provides the plumbing). If yourdevice finds the block, the entire reward is yours — currently 3.125 BTC plus fees. If it doesn’t, you get: nothing.
With a small device the chance of hitting a block is so tiny that the term lottery mining has stuck. The comparison is more accurate than people think: the daily odds are actually better than winning the Powerball jackpot, the stake is a one-time device purchase plus a few watts — and the jackpot sits around $200,000.
The three best-known lottery miners
NerdMiner V2 — the learning device (~1 watt)
The NerdMiner is an open-source project built on an ESP32 microcontroller with a small display. Depending on firmware it hashes at roughly 50–80 kilohashes per second (newer NMMiner variants reach ~1 megahash) at about one watt — powered simply over USB, from a PC port or any USB charger. For scale: a professional ASIC computes several trillion times faster. The NerdMiner isn’t a miner in any economic sense — it’s a teaching tool that shows blocks, difficulty and hashing live on your desk for around $40–60. As an introduction to how Bitcoin works, or a gift for a tech nerd, it’s brilliant. As a lottery ticket, it’s pure symbolism.
Bitaxe — the real mini ASIC (from ~$150)
The Bitaxe is the most exciting development in home mining: an open-source miner that puts a genuine Bitmain ASIC chip on a palm-sized board. The current flagship Bitaxe Gamma 601 runs the BM1370 — the same flagship silicon that powers our Antminer S21 Pro — and delivers around 1.2 TH/s at just 17 watts (~14–15 J/TH, true professional-grade efficiency). It’s quiet and costs $150–200 depending on the build. Worth knowing: unlike the NerdMiner, the Bitaxe does not run off a USB port — it needs its own 5V barrel-jack power supply (at least ~30W); the USB-C port is for setup and flashing only.
The Bitaxe is the scene’s standard lottery ticket — and the device behind the documented solo wins (more on those in a moment).
Avalon Nano 3S — the biggest ticket (~6 TH/s)
Canaan’s Avalon Nano 3S is a finished consumer product in mini format: about 6 TH/s at ~140 watts, designed as a desktop device. It buys you five times the odds of a Bitaxe — at eight times the power draw. If you want to take lottery mining “seriously” (as far as that goes), this is the most hashrate per unit below the professional class.
View Avalon Nano 3S on Amazon*
The honest math: what are the odds, really?
The calculation is simple: your chance per block equals your share of global hashrate. At roughly 900 EH/s of network hashrate (= 900 million TH/s) and 144 blocks per day, that works out to:
| Device | Hashrate | Power | Odds of 1 block | Statistically 1 block every… |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NerdMiner V2 | ~78 kH/s | ~1 W | effectively zero | ~billions of years |
| Bitaxe Gamma 601 | 1.2 TH/s | 17 W | ~1 in 5.2 million per day | ~14,000 years |
| Avalon Nano 3S | ~6 TH/s | ~140 W | ~1 in 1 million per day | ~2,900 years |
| For scale: Antminer S21+ (hosted) | 235 TH/s | 3,500 W | ~1 in 27,000 per day | ~73 years* |
*Which is exactly why professional machines mine in pools: instead of a jackpot every few decades, you get plannable proportional payouts every day. All figures rounded, at ~900 EH/s (mid-2026) — rising difficulty makes the odds worse over time.
For perspective: the odds of hitting the Powerball jackpot are about 1 in 292 million per ticket. A Bitaxe “plays” at dramatically better odds — it just plays around the clock, for roughly €4 of electricity per month (17 W running 24/7 at European residential rates).
And yet — sometimes somebody wins
The fascinating part about lottery mining: it doesn’t stay theoretical — and it keeps happening. Early 2026 alone saw three documented solo wins via CKPool, most recently on April 9, 2026: a hobbyist miner running just 70 TH/s solved block #944,306 and collected about 3.13 BTC, roughly $222,000 — only three days after another solo miner had found block #943,411 (~$210,000). Averaged over the last twelve months, a solo miner somewhere in the world wins a block about every 19 days.
The smallest documented win remains a Bitaxe story: on July 24, 2024, a single Bitaxe Ultra pushing about 500 GH/s solved block #853,742 — full reward of 3.15 BTC, worth roughly $206,000 at the time, at odds of about 1 in 1.1 billion per block. A cluster of six Bitaxe units with a combined 3.3 TH/s pulled it off too (March 2025).
These stories are real — but they are lottery wins. For every hit, hundreds of thousands of devices run empty for years. If you know that and treat it as a hobby with a jackpot fantasy, you’re doing it right. If you plan to “make money,” the math is against you.
What lottery miners are genuinely good for
- Learning: no book explains proof-of-work as well as a device hashing live on your desk. The best $50 crash course in Bitcoin there is.
- Decentralization: every independent solo miner makes the network a little more censorship-resistant — the ethos behind the open-source Bitaxe project.
- Tinkering & community: flashing firmware, overclocking, building clusters — lottery mining is a maker hobby with a very active scene.
- The dream: a ticket that plays around the clock, with a jackpot paid in bitcoin. As long as expectations stay realistic, there is nothing wrong with that.
What lottery miners are not: income
The math of a Bitaxe Gamma as an “investment”: ~$180 purchase, ~€4 of power per month, statistically expected revenue below one euro per month — the expected value is clearly negative, and the jackpot is the only winning scenario. That’s fine, as long as you treat it as what it is: entertainment with educational value.
If you want to produce bitcoin predictably, you need 200x the hashrate per device and industrial power instead of a residential rate: an Antminer S21+ with 235 TH/s earns proportional pool payouts every day — at Minenity always bundled with ASIC miner hosting from €0.062/kWh in the US or Asia, because the numbers don’t work at European residential rates. What that looks like in practice is exactly what the bitcoin mining calculator computes with the live BTC price and current difficulty. And the step-by-step path is covered in our guide on how to buy an ASIC miner.
Frequently asked questions
What is a NerdMiner?
An open-source mini miner built on an ESP32 microcontroller with a display, participating in solo mining at ~50–80 kH/s on about one watt. Economically irrelevant — but as a learning and desk device for ~$40–60, it’s the most charming introduction to how Bitcoin actually works.
Can you make money with a Bitaxe?
Statistically, no. A Bitaxe Gamma (1.2 TH/s) finds a block once every ~14,000 years on average, and the expected value sits below the power cost. The draw is the jackpot: if the device does find a block, all 3.125 BTC are yours.
Has a Bitaxe ever actually found a block?
Yes. The smallest documented win: in July 2024 a Bitaxe Ultra (~500 GH/s) solved block #853,742 via Solo CKPool and received 3.15 BTC (~$206,000). A six-Bitaxe cluster (3.3 TH/s, March 2025) and further small-device solo wins followed — three in early 2026 alone, most recently in April 2026 by a 70 TH/s hobbyist miner (~$222,000). On average, a solo miner wins about every 19 days.
What is the difference between a Bitaxe and a NerdMiner?
The Bitaxe runs a real Bitmain ASIC chip (1.2 TH/s) and is a fully-fledged, if tiny, miner. The NerdMiner hashes on a microcontroller (~78 kH/s) — more than 15 million times slower. The Bitaxe is a lottery ticket; the NerdMiner is a desk model.
Is the Avalon Nano 3S worth it?
As income, no. As the biggest lottery ticket among mini miners, yes: ~6 TH/s cut the statistical wait for a block to ~2,900 years. In return it draws ~140 watts — roughly €33 of power per month at European residential rates. If you’re willing to stake that monthly, it’s worth honestly comparing the numbers against professional hosted mining.
What is solo mining?
Mining without sharing: instead of proportional pool payouts, you keep the entire block reward — if your device finds the block. Technically this usually runs through solo pools like Solo CKPool that only provide infrastructure. For small devices, solo mining is the only mode that makes sense, because proportional pool payouts at 1 TH/s would amount to cents.
Conclusion
Bitaxe, NerdMiner and Avalon Nano are great devices — if you classify them correctly. They make Bitcoin tangible, strengthen the network, and sell a dream that in rare, documented cases actually comes true. They are hobby, education and lottery ticket in one. What they are not: a source of income. If you want to move from the dream to plannable bitcoin production, the path starts in the miner shop with hosting — or run your own numbers first in the mining calculator.
*Links marked with an asterisk lead to Amazon (advertising).As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases — the price doesn’t change for you. We do not sell the lottery miners mentioned and have no business relationship with their manufacturers. All figures as of July/August 2026; odds change with network difficulty. This article is not investment advice.
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About the author: Michel Hartleben is the founder and managing director of 21 Strategy GmbH (Berlin) and the brand Minenity. He advises private investors and family offices on bitcoin mining hosting strategy, hardware selection, and treasury allocation.