How much they earn from mining

To begin with, let’s note that mining bitcoins has become much harder over the last few years. Now the difficulty index of BTC mining is 108.1 T, which is only 2.1 per cent behind the historical maximum. And it was recorded in the first half of January 2025 and was 110.4T.

For comparison: three years ago, the complexity of mining was 26.6 T, which is four times less than the current figure. This means that over this period of time, miners needed to increase the amount of computing power by the same amount of times to maintain approximately the same yield in terms of BTC.

It is also worth mentioning the hash rate of the Bitcoin network, which for the first time exceeded the mark of one thousand exahashes on 2 January 2025. All of this suggests that BTC mining is becoming an increasingly competitive business, making it more difficult to mine the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin network hashrate graph for the last year

However, sometimes luck still smiles on small players who mine crypto as a hobby. As representatives of Decrypt note, this time the owner of just one ASIC-miner from FutureBit costing about $400 was able to smythe a block in the Bitcoin network. At the same time, the reward of 3.125 BTC is equivalent to $327 thousand dollars, which pays off any costs of the occupation.

ASIC-miner from FutureBit, which participated in the mining of the block

However, the lover of the first cryptocurrency did get some help – and with the help of the processing power of other miners. Here’s a comment from Bitcoin community spokesperson Pete Rizzo.

Someone shared computing power with a home miner so they could use the reward to fund open source projects.

In other words, representatives of the non-profit organisation The 256 Foundation this week took a small ASIC for BTC mining and asked those willing to remotely allocate their devices to work in the company’s own pool.

That is how network members joined forces to increase the chances of mining a Bitcoin block, which is almost impossible to do on your own. And ten hours later, they did just that. Here is a comment on the matter by an anonymous BTC owner under the pseudonym Econoalchemist.

We decided to ask backers to channel their processing power into our own pool based on the FutureBit Apollo device like true madmen. And we actually managed to find a block.

Block 881423 in the Bitcoin network, which was mined by the heroes of the article

In other words, we are talking about combining the efforts of miners, which happens on mining pools along the lines of the 2Miners platform. However, in the case of today’s news, the owners of computing devices did not share the reward, but gave it to the author of the idea.


We should also note that the familiar 2Miners pool supports the function of automatic conversion of altcoin miners' rewards into BTC. It turns out that miners use their video cards to mine popular coins like Ravencoin, and they are exchanged for bitcoins and sent to the corresponding wallets.
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Econoalchemist Anonymous added that the accrued reward will go to fund The 256 Foundation. Its representatives are trying to “break the monopoly of private mining empires by making Bitcoin and related technologies freely available to all.” To do this, the platform is making efforts to attract independent miners to the network.

Amusingly, representatives of major players in crypto mining support such an initiative. For example, they include the financial manager of Compass Mining CJ Barnett. He believes that home BTC mining is a great way to participate in what is happening inside the Bitcoin network, although the chances of getting a block on your own are virtually nil. Here’s a quote.

The most fun thing about home mining is the prospect – albeit astronomically small – of winning the lottery and being rewarded with a block.

😈 MORE FUN STUFF FROM US AT YANDEX.ZEN!

What’s happening to Bitcoin investors

Meanwhile, the bullrun in the cryptocurrency industry continues, against which a sharp rise in the Bitcoin exchange rate in the near future looks like a possible prospect.

As of today, new Bitcoin investors hold 50.2 per cent of the cryptocurrency’s total supply – we’re talking about coins held by players who have been participating in the market for between 1 day and 3 months. This figure is far from the highs during previous Bitcoin rate records, Glassnode analysts said.

Change in the share of bitcoins at the disposal of new investors

For example, the figure reached 74 per cent in 2021 and 85 per cent in 2018. Which means room for the industry to continue growing remains.

Usually, as the bullrun develops, experienced investors sell their coins and newcomers buy them. So when the pressure of new entrants subsides, the market reverses to a bearish trend.


History shows the power of a decentralised cryptocurrency community that is able to unite for a common goal. However, it will likely never be possible to repeat such success alone. Therefore, owners of computing equipment are better off sending their power to mining pools like 2Miners.
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Look for more interesting things in our crypto chat. We look forward to seeing you there.

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