Cloud mining: scam or real mining? The one-calculation test

Cloud mining means paying a company to rent a share 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. of the 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. of its machines, installed on its premises, in exchange for the bitcoin that hashrate is supposed to produce, minus its fees. You buy a contract, say so many TH/s for so many days, and the company pays you your share every day.

On paper, it is mining without the downsides: no machine to buy, no noise, no heat, no electricity to pay at home. The problem lies elsewhere: you never see the machines. Unless the contract lets you choose the pool A server that machines connect to. A regular pool shares the earnings, a solo pool does not. Solo or pool?, you can check neither that they exist nor that they mine for you. Everything rests on trust, and that is exactly what scams exploit.

Two things look like cloud mining without being it. Hosting: you buy a real machine, with its serial number, and a hosting company runs it for you. And renting hashrate on a marketplace: you rent a real machine for a few hours and choose the pool yourself. More on that in the alternatives, at the end of this guide.

The Bitcoin network pays out a known amount every day: about 144 blocks, each with its reward and the fees of its transactions. On average, that amount is shared among all the machines in the world, in proportion to their hashrate. Dividing it by the network’s hashrate gives what 1 TH/s (a trillion attempts per second) earns in a day. The industry calls this figure the hashprice, a term launched in 2019 by Luxor, which publishes an index of it.

The rule: a contract that pays more than €0.033 per TH/s per day (network as of 17 October 2026), before electricity and fees, cannot be paying out of mining. That is what each TH/s earns on average, in the biggest farm as in the smallest Bitaxe. An honest contract pays less, because the seller still has to pay for electricity, machines and its margin.

Two caveats, to be fair. On a single day, luck or a fee spike can beat the average, but not day after day, at an amount fixed in advance. And the figure moves with the price and the difficulty How many attempts it takes on average to find a block. It adjusts itself about every two weeks. Difficulty explained: it is recalculated here at every adjustment. Counted in bitcoin, it does not depend on the price: about 45 sats per TH/s per day, handy for a contract paid in BTC. For a contract in dollars: about $0.037 per TH/s per day, or about $37 per PH/s, the unit of Luxor’s index.

The test applies to SHA-256 The hash calculation Bitcoin uses, and so mining. Bitcoin Cash uses the same one: the same machines mine either., Bitcoin’s algorithm. Mining Bitcoin Cash with the same machines gives a ceiling of the same order: about €0.033 per TH/s per day excluding transaction fees, according to my node A computer that keeps a full copy of Bitcoin and checks every block itself. Run your own node on 28 October 2026. For a coin with another algorithm, the unit and the figure change, but the method stays the same: the promised gain, divided by the hashrate, compared with what that hashrate earns on its network.

Average gross earnings, before electricity and fees, network as of 17 October 2026. Method: network difficulty, average reward per block (fees included) and bitcoin price (about €72,500).

Hashrate	For scale	Per day	Per month (30 days)	Per year
1 TH/s	a little under a Bitaxe Gamma (1.2 TH/s rated)	€0.033	€0.98	€12
10 TH/s	a Thor P2 (10 TH/s measured at the wall)	€0.33	€9.76	€119
50 TH/s	my 13 machines on the shelf	€1.63	€49	€594
200 TH/s	an Antminer S21 (200 TH/s rated)	€6.51	€195	€2,375

Take an offer invented for this example, modelled on the ones going around:

1. The promised gain in euros per day: 3% of €500, so €15.
2. Per TH/s: €15 divided by 50 TH/s, so €0.30 per TH/s per day.
3. Against the ceiling: €0.033 per TH/s per day, network as of 17 October 2026. The offer promises about 9 times what mining can produce, before even paying for electricity.
4. What 50 TH/s would really produce: about €1.63 a day, so about €49 in 30 days, before electricity and fees, for €500 paid.

To give a sense of scale: 50 TH/s is roughly the hashrate of my 13 machines on the shelf. They draw 500 to 600 W around the clock, about €70 of electricity a month on my Tempo plan. In a regular pool, that hashrate would earn about €49 a month on average; I mine solo, and I have not found a single block yet. The offer’s €15 a day would come to €450 a month.

So the €15 a day cannot come from mining. Either it is paid with the money of later customers, which is the definition of a Ponzi scheme, and it collapses when deposits slow down. Or it is never paid out at all: a balance climbing on a screen is not a transfer. And if an offer gives no TH/s at all, only a percentage per day, the test is already done: a real mining contract is measured in hashrate, and its earnings change every day with the network. They cannot be fixed in advance.

The names change all the time, the mechanisms much less. Without targeting any particular company, here are the patterns that should stop you. One is enough.

• A fixed or guaranteed gain, as a percentage per day or per month. Mining cannot guarantee anything: what a machine earns changes every day with the difficulty, the price and the fees. “Unrealistic return promises” are among the scam signs listed by the AMF, France’s financial markets regulator.
• Referral bonuses on several levels: a commission on your referrals’ deposits, then on their referrals’ deposits. The AMF described this mechanism, “bonuses or commissions on different levels” for recruiting new subscribers, and likened it to multi-level marketing in a warning of 2 March 2023 (in French) about fraudulent trading-robot offers. When the money comes mostly from newcomers, the pyramid collapses as soon as they run out.
• A deposit required to withdraw: a “withdrawal fee”, a “tax”, a “verification deposit”, an “account activation”. The FBI describes exactly this scenario: when victims try to withdraw, they are told they must first pay a fee or taxes. Its advice: do not pay any additional fees or taxes to withdraw your money.
• Withdrawals blocked or postponed: a minimum withdrawal that keeps moving, “maintenance”, an “audit”, a frozen account. And a successful first small withdrawal proves nothing: in the GAW Miners case, just below, some customers were indeed paid, with money from sales to other customers.
• No verifiable pool or hashrate: no pool name, no worker name, no dashboard anywhere but on the seller’s site. A hashrate counter displayed by the seller proves nothing, since the seller is the one displaying it.
• Urgency and opacity: a “limited” offer, a countdown, a company you cannot find, contact only through messaging apps, deposits and withdrawals in crypto only.

Conversely, a serious offer gives a hashrate in TH/s, earnings that vary every day with the network, fees spelled out in writing and a company you can identify, and it lets you check the hashrate on a pool, ideally one of your choice. Even then, the profitability math below still has to be done.

These patterns are not theoretical. In December 2015, the SEC, the US securities regulator, charged GAW Miners and ZenMiner, which had sold about $20 million of cloud mining contracts called “Hashlets” to more than 10,000 investors in 2014. They were touted as “always profitable”; according to the SEC, most investors had paid for computing power that never existed. From 2014 to 2019, the BitClub Network sold shares of purported mining pools and rewarded those who recruited new investors. One of its programmers pleaded guilty in July 2020: he admitted inflating the mining earnings shown to customers, at the request of one of its creators, including a 60% overnight jump in the daily earnings displayed, in February 2015. At least $722 million worth of bitcoin was taken from investors, according to IRS-CI, the criminal investigation arm of the US tax agency.

For other crypto scams, fake support, fake giveaways or fake traders: the 5 beginner mistakes to avoid.

Passing the test does not make a contract profitable: it only proves that it is not impossible. For an offer that looks honest, do the real math: the hashrate, multiplied by what 1 TH/s earns, minus the electricity and maintenance fees, over the whole contract, then compare it with the price you pay.

At constant network figures, this contract gives you back about €457 for €1,200 paid. To break even, what 1 TH/s earns would have to rise by about 63% and stay there all year. And two things can work against you: if new machines join the network, the difficulty rises and each TH/s earns less; a contract lasting several years will also go through the next halving The reward in new bitcoin is cut in half every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years. The last one, in April 2024, brought it to 3.125 BTC., expected around 2028, which will halve the reward in newly created bitcoin.

Then there is plain common sense: if a contract earned more than it cost, the seller would be better off keeping the machines. An honest seller sells hashrate at a price that covers its machines, its electricity and its margin: so you buy mining at a higher cost than the seller’s. Mining at home does no better on average: at €0.20 per kWh, none of the machines reviewed on this site currently covers its electricity. The details for a small machine: how much a Bitaxe earns, and for the broader question: is Bitcoin mining profitable?

Fictional examples, figures as of 17 October 2026, recalculated at every difficulty adjustment. This is not investment advice.

“Free cloud mining” offers hand out some hashrate when you sign up and show a balance that keeps climbing. Put them through the same test. 100 GH/s for free is 0.1 TH/s: on average about €0.0033 a day, or about €1.19 a year. If the app shows much more, it is not mining. If it shows about that, it will take you years to reach a withdrawal minimum.

When you have to buy a paid contract, pay an activation fee or refer friends before you can finally withdraw, the free part was only bait: these are the red flags above, with a first step that costs nothing.

Same thing for apps that promise to mine on your phone: without a mining chip, an ASIC A chip built for a single task. Bitcoin mining chips can only compute hashes, but extremely fast., a phone or a PC is nothing against the network. The details are in mining Bitcoin on a PC or a phone. And on the hardware side, fake ESP32 miners play on the same confusion between a counter that ticks and a real chance of winning.

In France, the AMF publishes blacklists of unauthorised sites and companies (in French), including one dedicated to crypto-assets: 247 sites in its version of 8 October 2026. Check the company name and the exact site address before sending anything. But not being on the list proves nothing: it “is not meant to be exhaustive, given the regular appearance of new unauthorised or fraudulent actors”, the AMF notes. Outside France, check your own regulator’s warning list as well.

If the site holds your crypto or exchanges it for euros, it provides crypto-asset services. Since the end of the transition period to the EU’s MiCA regulation, which ran until 1 July 2026, that requires an authorisation in the European Union, and the AMF urges customers to turn exclusively to authorised providers, known as CASPs (PSCA in French). The AMF’s whitelists list those authorised to provide these services in France. An authorisation does not make an investment profitable or risk-free, though.

Doubts about an offer? AMF Epargne Info Service answers on +33 1 53 45 62 00, Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 12:30 French time, or through an online form.

If you have already paid:

1. Stop paying, including any “fees” demanded to unlock a withdrawal.
2. Keep the evidence: emails, transfer orders, deposit addresses, screenshots, the contract.
3. File a complaint: in France, at a police or gendarmerie station, or by letter to the judicial court, with an online pre-complaint as a first step. The AMF explains the steps on its page for victims.
4. Beware of “recovery” offers: the AMF offers no fund recovery service, and warns about fake lawyers who contact victims and ask for fees.

General information for France as of 28 October 2026, not legal or financial advice.

If what appeals to you is mining without a machine, there is a verifiable version: renting hashrate on a marketplace, such as MiningRigRentals, and pointing it at a solo pool. You rent a real machine, owned by an individual or a farm, for a few hours or a few days, and you choose the pool yourself: the hashrate shows up live on the pool’s dashboard, nothing taken on trust. My MiningRigRentals guide covers renting in both directions.

It is not an investment, it is a lottery ticket with a price known in advance. Renting 100 TH/s for 24 hours gives about 1 chance in 69,900 of finding a block worth over €220,000, about €3.25 on average (network as of 17 October 2026). An owner has no reason to rent below what the machine would earn in a pool: expect to pay at least that. You pay for the chance, not for a return. The solo mining calculator redoes the math for any hashrate. On FindMyBlock, the solo pool I run (0% fee, the reward goes straight to your address), rented hashrate connects to a dedicated port: stratum+tcp://eu.findmyblock.xyz:3336.

The other option is a small miner at home. A Bitaxe Gamma, about €60, is rated at 1.2 TH/s for 15 to 18 W: on average about €14 a year, for €26 to €32 of electricity at €0.20 per kWh, and about 1 chance in 16,000 per year of finding a block solo. Not profitable either, on average, but honest: the machine is yours, you see each of its shares, and solo on a non-custodial pool, the reward lands straight on your address. To compare machines for your budget: which miner to choose.