Best solo mining pool: Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash pools compared

Disclosure. I run FindMyBlock: findmyblock.xyz for Bitcoin, with no fee, and bch.findmyblock.xyz for Bitcoin Cash, with a 1.5% fee. It sits in the tables like the other pools A server that machines connect to. A regular pool shares the earnings, a solo pool does not. Solo or pool?, and I say below where it is not the cheapest. This guide contains no affiliate links.

Method. Fees and payout models were read on 28 October 2026 on each pool’s own page, and blocks found by several of them were opened on mempool.space to read their coinbase The first transaction of a block, the one that pays the reward. On a solo pool it pays your address directly.. The tables only hold what could be checked, and each pool name links to the page that was read. A pool can change its fee overnight: SoloPool.org went from 1.5% to 2% on 1 September 2026. Check before you point your machines at it.

• Where the reward goes. This is criterion number one. In a true solo pool, the pool writes your address into the coinbase transaction, the first one in the block: if your machine finds the block, the bitcoin is created straight at your address. Elsewhere, the reward first lands in the pool’s wallet, which pays you later: until then, it sits with the pool.
• The fee, and what it is taken on. Solo, it is taken from the reward of a block found, and nothing otherwise. On average it therefore costs a small machine very little: for a Bitaxe Gamma (1.2 TH/s rated), a 2% fee costs about €0.28 a year on average (network as of 17 October 2026). But the day you win, 2% of a Bitcoin block is about €4,500.
• A nearby server. From France, a server in Europe shortens the trip of your shares An attempt good enough to be counted by the pool. It proves your machine is working, even if it is not enough to find a block.. The effect stays small: Solo CK itself writes that a small network delay is usually vastly offset by the speed of the pool. It is a comfort criterion more than an odds one.
• Bitcoin Cash. Solo CK, Braiins Solo and Public Pool only mine Bitcoin. For Bitcoin Cash you need another pool and a Bitcoin Cash address.
• Open source. A pool whose code is published can be reviewed, and run at home: that is the case for Public Pool and for ckpool, the software behind Solo CK.
• Verifiable blocks. A serious pool signs its blocks in the coinbase, and mempool The waiting room for transactions not yet written into a block. Whoever builds the block chooses which ones go in..space uses that to file each block under the right pool: you can count its blocks without taking its word for it.
• Public stats. You type your address and see your machine, its hashrate Computing power: the number of attempts per second of a machine or of the whole network. The higher it is, the more tickets you play in each draw. and your best share, without creating an account.

Public Pool now has two modes. Its Solo mode, on port 3333, pays the block to your address. A PPLNS Two ways a regular pool shares earnings: by the last shares sent (PPLNS), or a fixed payment per share (PPS). mode, which splits rewards between miners by their recent work, uses other ports (13333 for Stratum The language machines and pools speak. V1): for solo, check the port. Public Pool is where block 957,382 was found in July 2026, by a Bitaxe Gamma of about 1 TH/s (blocks found solo).

Solo CK and small machines. Its minimum difficulty How many attempts it takes on average to find a block. It adjusts itself about every two weeks. Difficulty explained is 10,000: with a very small machine, your stats can take a while to show up, with no effect on your odds. It advises against mining Bitcoin below 100 GH/s, which rules out ESP32 miners but not a Bitaxe.

Where FindMyBlock is not ahead. At 0%, my pool ties with Public Pool and with a pool run at home: it is not cheaper than them. It has been open to all since July 2025, has not found a Bitcoin block yet, and I run it alone; Solo CK has been finding blocks since 2014. What FindMyBlock brings: a server in Europe, pages in French and leaderboards. The details are in Solo mining on FindMyBlock.

Where FindMyBlock is not the cheapest. On Bitcoin Cash, my pool’s 1.5% matches 2Miners and Kryptex, and a pool run at home takes nothing. The difference is in the payout: like SoloPool.org, FindMyBlock pays straight in the coinbase, while 2Miners and Kryptex first credit a balance on their side. On a Bitcoin Cash block, about €840 at today’s price, 1.5% is about €13.

Of the 6 blocks found by FindMyBlock BCH, my pool, 2 were found by small machines and 3 with hashrate I rented myself: the list, with explorer links, is on the Bitcoin Cash page.

Kryptex: 1.5% or 1%? The pool page shows 1.5% in SOLO mode; a Kryptex article dated 13 May 2026 still says 1%. The pool page is what counts. To mine SOLO at Kryptex, the user starts with solo:, followed by your address.

ViaBTC no longer has a solo mode: it ended it for all coins on 20 May 2026 (ViaBTC’s announcement).

Why Bitcoin Cash? Its network is much smaller: a Bitaxe Gamma (1.2 TH/s rated) has about a 1 in 59 chance a year of finding a block there (difficulty of 28 October 2026), against 1 in 16,000 on Bitcoin (network as of 17 October 2026). The prize is smaller and, on average, earnings on the two networks balance out: it is all explained on the Bitcoin Cash solo mining page and in the guide Mine Bitcoin Cash with a Bitaxe. For your own machine on Bitcoin, the solo mining calculator redoes the math with today’s network.

The cheapest pool is your own: your node builds the block and writes your address into it, with nobody in between. With Umbrel, you install Bitcoin Node, then Public Pool, which the Umbrel App Store describes as configured automatically for your node, with no fees. And it works: of the 8 blocks mempool.space files under “Public Pool”, 6 carry the signature “Public Pool on Umbrel”, the Umbrel app’s.

The price to pay: a PC that stays on, an SSD of at least 1 TB for the blockchain, a first sync of several hours to several days, and your home router as your only link to the network. If your connection drops, your pool drops with it: set a backup pool (Fallback Pool) in AxeOS.

The full walkthrough, from Docker to connecting the miner, is in Install Umbrel on Windows to mine solo. On Umbrel, Public Pool takes miners on port 2018 (the app’s configuration); the host is your Umbrel’s address.

What about Bitcoin Cash? You need a Bitcoin Cash node and a Stratum server. On Umbrel, SoloBCH Forge does that job with no fee according to its author: it is a community app, created in September 2026, installed outside the official store, and it needs the Bitcoin Cash Node app, fully synced. Its code is published: read it before you trust it with your machines.

No need to take a pool’s word for it, mine included: the proof is in the coinbase, and anyone can read it.

1. Read the coinbase in AxeOS. Since AxeOS 2.13 (February 2026), the dashboard decodes the coinbase transaction the pool sends with every job. Your address shows in bold, with a star, and the Fee line gives the pool’s share, in green at 0%. If your share drops below 95%, the current version (2.15.4) shows “Your share of the mining reward is only”, followed by the percentage, and “You don’t have a share in the mining reward” if you get nothing. The decoder was added for that reason: its developers cite pools that claimed to mine Bitcoin but replaced the work and the payout with something else (their explanation). This decoding only works for Bitcoin: on Bitcoin Cash, AxeOS advises unticking Decode Coinbase Tx in the pool’s advanced options.
2. Open a block found by the pool. On mempool.space, every known pool has its page, such as Solo CK’s. Open a block, then its first transaction: the coinbase outputs tell who got paid. Block 973,413, found through Solo CK on 27 October 2026, pays two addresses: 98% to the miner, 2% to the pool. Braiins Solo’s block 970,904: 99.5% and 0.5%. Public Pool’s block 957,382: a single address paid, the miner’s.
3. Read the signature. The start of the coinbase holds a short text chosen by the pool: “/solo.ckpool.org/”, “/braiinssolo/”, “Public-Pool”. That is what lets mempool.space attribute each block. A pool that announces blocks without giving their height or an explorer link leaves you nothing to check.
4. Check that the pool sees your machine. Type your address on its stats page: raw.stats.ckpool.org/users/ followed by your address at Solo CK, solo.braiins.com/stats/ followed by your address at Braiins Solo, the Find Your Miners search at Public Pool, the FindMyBlock dashboard. On FindMyBlock, my pool, the Setup verification tool on the Tools page also checks that your address is the one that would be paid.
5. On a pool that keeps a balance, such as 2Miners or Kryptex on Bitcoin Cash, follow every payout on an explorer all the way to your address: until it is paid, your earnings stay with the pool.

And if your machine finds a block, what comes next (the 100-block wait, the right address, taxes) is in Found a block solo: what happens next.

In AxeOS, open the pool settings. Four fields are enough:

Recent AxeOS versions, such as 2.15.4, split the host and the port by themselves if you paste the full address. Here are the values, pool by pool:

The name after the dot tells your machines apart; at Solo CK and Braiins Solo it is optional. On Bitcoin Cash, the user is a Bitcoin Cash address: on a pool that pays in the coinbase, such as FindMyBlock BCH or SoloPool.org, a Bitcoin bc1 address cannot receive the block (2Miners, which pays from a balance, also offers a payout converted to BTC). Either way, use an address from a wallet whose keys you hold, not an exchange’s. For the full Bitaxe setup, from Wi-Fi to the first share: Set up a Bitaxe, step by step.

• A Bitaxe on Bitcoin, with nothing to install: a 0% pool that pays in the coinbase, Public Pool or FindMyBlock (mine), or Braiins Solo at 0.5%. If you want the longest track record, Solo CK has been finding blocks since 2014; its 2% costs a Bitaxe Gamma about €0.28 a year on average.
• Depending on nobody: your own node, with Umbrel and Public Pool.
• Bitcoin Cash: FindMyBlock BCH (mine, 1.5%) or SoloPool.org (2%) for a direct coinbase payout; 2Miners or Kryptex (1.5%) if a balance at the pool does not bother you; 0% on your own node.
• Rented hashrate (NiceHash, MiningRigRentals): a port meant for it, 4334 at Solo CK, 3336 or 4338 at FindMyBlock (mine).
• In every case: an address whose keys you hold, and a backup pool set in AxeOS.

On average, solo and a regular pool pay the same; solo only changes how the earnings land (Solo or pool: which one?). The video at the top of the page presents FindMyBlock, my pool; this guide puts it back in its place among the others.