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How Long Does It Take to Mine 1 Bitcoin?

Emma Dwyer
Emma Dwyer
July 20th, 2023
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Those who are interested in Bitcoin may ask, how long does it take to mine one Bitcoin? This is especially true when the Bitcoin price fluctuates between bullish and bearish candlestick patterns.

In this guide, we examine how long it takes to mine one Bitcoin and reveal the easiest way for you to mine Bitcoin over time.

The Bitcoin Mining Process

Bitcoin is mined in blocks. A miner creates a block about every ten minutes, which earns the miner a new Bitcoin. Since previous efforts do not increase a miner's chances of successfully mining a block, mining is a random activity comparable to a lottery.

A miner may receive different amounts of Bitcoin for the same Bitcoin block. Right now, each block generates 6.25 additional Bitcoin, known as the block subsidy. Every four years, this subsidy is reduced by half.

In addition, a fee is paid for each transaction that is part of a miner's block. Although it is only a modest part of the total block reward today, the revenue from fees is currently unstable.

Bitcoin mining revenue is uncertain for smaller miners due to the random nature of mining, halving, and fluctuations in transaction fees over a short period of time; blocks are difficult to discover but very profitable.

Mining Pools

Many mining companies, especially smaller ones, join mining pool to stabilize their revenues and reduce uncertainty. These pools combine the hash rate or collective computing power of multiple mining operations and divide block rewards among participants. In a mining pool, each participant is rewarded according to the amount of their contribution.

How Much Bitcoin can be Mined Each Day?

Under ideal conditions, it takes between ten minutes and one month to mine a Bitcoin, but this assumes that the miner has sophisticated rigging equipment. However, most mining conditions are less than ideal, so most miners will agree it usually takes longer.

To increase these odds, huge Bitcoin mining farms use a lot of ASICs. A mining farm with 20,000 miners would have a good chance of gaining a few blocks every day since a new block is created every ten minutes, or 144 blocks per day.

Winning block rewards is unlikely, however, as most individuals do not have millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin mining equipment at hand. However, there is still a way to acquire one Bitcoin without a huge injection of funds.

How to Mine One Bitcoin Over Time

In a Bitcoin mining pool, all miners pool their hash power and share the reward as a team effort. This means that regardless of which individual gets the block reward, the block reward is split and paid out equally to all miners who provided the most hash power.

The best way for mining Bitcoin, therefore, is to join a mining pool. A Bitcoin will only be yours after a lot of ASICs, but you can accumulate it over time.

For example, you could mine 0.01 BTC every day with five or ten ASICs, which would allow you to mine an entire Bitcoin in 100 days. But, of course, how long it takes you to mine, a Bitcoin depends on a number of variables.

In order to judge the difficulty, you should look at Bitcoin's hash rate. The more difficult it is to mine Bitcoin, the higher the hash rate (more competition and less profit). However, as new miners join the network and older ones leave, the hash rate often fluctuates.

Even something as basic as maintenance can affect the length of time it takes to mine one Bitcoin. ASICs are often run continuously with no downtime, making them vulnerable to failure. There needs to be a process in place to repair the equipment quickly so you can optimize your revenue.

ASIC is an acronym for Application-Specific Integrated Circuit. An ASIC miner is a computerized device used solely to "mine" digital money using ASICs. Each ASIC miner is typically designed to mine a specific digital currency. For example, a Bitcoin ASIC miner produces only Bitcoin.

Mining Speed

Since the mining process depends on a number of variables, it is difficult to estimate how long it will take to mine one Bitcoin. In particular, processing capacity, rivalry, and the type of mining hardware used are important variables. However, the hashing difficulty algorithm consistently determines how long it takes to mine one BTC.

It is designed to adjust itself to ensure a ten-minute block verification time. Therefore, mining BTC in a perfect world takes about ten minutes.

Most miners do not have the equipment or electricity to mine effectively. Therefore, their mining speed will eventually be affected by this. For those who choose to mine on their own, their mining time will likely exceed the recommended ten minutes.

Can Bitcoin Miners Go Solo?

It is possible to mine alone, although most Bitcoin miners focus their efforts as members of a mining pool.

Solo mining is more of a risk, but it can also be more lucrative. Unlike Bitcoin mining pools, which guarantee smaller, frequent rewards and eliminate most of the risks associated with mining, solo mining can be more profitable overall than using a pool. This is because solo miners do not incur mining pool fees, especially for those running a larger mining operation.

However, miners with only a couple of machines would rarely discover a block. Even a large mining operation with over 2,000 machines would take about a week to find a single block.

Is Bitcoin Mining Profitable?

Whether mining Bitcoin is lucrative or not depends primarily on how much electricity you can afford where you live. In South Korea, for example, electricity is quite expensive, making it impractical to mine Bitcoin. On the other hand, electricity is quite cheap in Russia, so it may be worthwhile to mine Bitcoin in this location.

When evaluating profitability, it is important to understand that large companies dominate BTC mining. Tens of thousands of miners work in these mining farms, receiving discounts on ASICs thanks to their large orders and on electricity due to their constant demand.

It's easier to compete with these mining farms if you live in a place where electricity is really cheap.

Is Bitcoin Mining Worth It?

No miner has any certainty that they will be the one to receive the block as BTC mining becomes increasingly competitive and less profitable, especially without the computing power to outperform other miners. Due to the complexity of calculating the reward time for successfully mining a block, there is no simple, accurate way to answer the question of how long it takes to mine one Bitcoin. If your competitors use ASICs and mining rigs, the solution is much more complicated if you use a PC or a smartphone.

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Contributors

Emma Dwyer
Cryptocurrency Writer and Editor
Emma is a law graduate with seven years of experience working in financial services. She has been writing in the cryptocurrency and blockchain tech space for two years now. Recently she worked as a Managing Editor and Head of Content for different crypto publications.