The Cheapest Bitcoin Miner 2026: What 25 Euros of Solo Mining Really Gets You
By Dominik Lederer, Founder, Hardware Engineer & Solo Mining Expert · August 6, 2026 · Reading time approx. 7 minutes
The most important facts in 30 seconds
The cheapest Bitcoin miner is an ESP32 device for about 25 euros, which performs real solo mining, but would statistically take 17.2 billion years to find its own block at today's difficulty, making it a learning device, not a lottery ticket.
- Example device in the Polarblocks assortment: NMminer TV, 25 Euros, approx. 1 MH/s (max. 1,060 KH/s according to manufacturer), 0.8 to 1 Watt.
- Electricity costs for continuous operation: 7.0 to 8.8 kWh per year, i.e. 2.18 to 3.07 Euros at 31.1 to 35 cents per kWh.
- Expected waiting time for a block with 1 MH/s: approximately 17.2 billion years. The universe is about 13.8 billion years old.
- A Bitaxe Gamma 601 with 1.3 TH/s has a 1 in 13,224 chance per year at the same difficulty, resulting in a statistical yield of 13.26 Euros per year.
- For every Euro spent, the Bitaxe delivers about 218,000 times more hashrate. Cheap here is the most expensive way to buy chances.
- Basis: Difficulty 126,231,507,121,868 (mempool.space, August 6, 2026), block reward 3.125 BTC plus transaction fees, BTC 56,094.70 Euros (Kraken, August 6, 2026, 06:11 UTC, exchange rate dependent).
On my desk sits a device that looks like a small digital clock from the nineties. Colorful display, 240 by 240 pixels, USB cable plugged into the back. It costs 25 euros. And it mines Bitcoin. Really, in solo mode, with its own address, against the same blockchain as a hall full of Antminers in Texas.
When customers call us, it's often the first device they ask about. Understandable. 25 euros sounds like a risk-free entry. Like something you try before spending 149 euros.
I sell this device. And yet I tell you: Never buy it as a lottery ticket. Why, is explained in the next number.
What is the cheapest Bitcoin miner you can buy in 2026?
The answer depends on what you consider a miner. An ASIC device, i.e., a chip built exclusively for SHA-256, currently starts at around 129 euros. Below that is a separate class of devices: microcontroller miners based on the ESP32. No ASIC, no specialized hardware, just a commercially available Wi-Fi chip that calculates SHA-256 in software.
The best-known representative is the NerdMiner V2, an open-source project. We stock the NMminer TV variant: 25 euros, ESP32, 1.54-inch color display, up to 1,060 KH/s according to the manufacturer, so just over 1 MH/s. Consumption 0.8 to 1 Watt via USB. It displays time, hashrate, pool status, and Wi-Fi signal, and runs autonomously in solo mode.
A note of honesty upfront: The hashrates in this class fluctuate enormously. The reference project nerdminers.org lists the classic NerdMiner v2 at around 250 KH/s. On the market, listings range from 49 KH/s to 1,030 KH/s. Our device is at the upper end of this range. For the calculation, this means: If you get a cheaper board, your numbers will not get better, but worse.
How long would a 1 MH/s miner take to find the first block?
This calculation requires no belief, only a formula. The expected time to find a block results from the network difficulty multiplied by 2 to the power of 32, divided by your own hashrate.
Difficulty on August 6, 2026: 126,231,507,121,868 (source mempool.space, unchanged since the last retarget, the next is at block 961,632). Used with 1,000,000 hashes per second, this results in 5.42 times 10 to the power of 17 seconds. Converted:
For calculation and citation
1 MH/s: approximately 17.2 billion years expected waiting time for a block. This corresponds to 1.25 times the age of the universe (approximately 13.8 billion years).
250 KH/s (typical NerdMiner board): approximately 68.8 billion years.
1.3 TH/s (Bitaxe Gamma 601): approximately 13,224 years, i.e., a 1 in 13,224 chance per year.
Statistical annual yield at 1 MH/s: approximately 0.001 cents. After one hundred years of continuous operation: approximately 0.1 cents. Basis block value 175,296 Euros (3.125 BTC plus transaction fees, BTC 56,094.70 Euros, Kraken August 6, 2026 06:11 UTC, exchange rate dependent, cross-check CoinGecko 56,099 Euros).
One hundredth of a cent a year. That's not a number to argue about. That's a number that reclassifies an entire product category.
Is a 25-euro miner better than a lottery ticket?
No, and not by a small margin. A Eurojackpot ticket costs 2 euros without processing fees and has a 1 in 139,838,160 chance of hitting the jackpot. With two draws per week, that's 104 tickets a year for 208 euros and an annual chance of about 1 in 1,344,598.
The NMminer has a hit probability of 5.8 times 10 to the power of minus 11 in the same year. The lottery player is therefore about 12,800 times more likely to win. However, they also pay eight times as much.
I don't like Eurojackpot; that's no secret in this blog. But I don't build my arguments on numbers that just suit me. Against a 25-euro ESP32, the lottery ticket wins the odds calculation, and anyone who claims otherwise isn't calculating.
You don't want a learning device, but a real chance?
Then you need an ASIC. The Bitaxe Gamma 601 "Arctic Night" costs 149 euros, draws about 17 watts, remains whisper-quiet, and delivers 1.3 TH/s. This is the threshold at which solo mining statistically offers any chance within human lifespans.
Still need the basics? The Home Miner Guide explains how to get started from scratch.
What does a 25-euro miner cost to operate per year?
Little, and that is the only area where it wins. With 0.8 to 1 watt continuous load, 7.0 to 8.8 kilowatt-hours are consumed annually. At a German household electricity price of 31.1 to 35 cents per kilowatt-hour, this amounts to 2.18 to 3.07 euros per year.
For comparison: A Bitaxe with 17 watts consumes around 149 kWh and therefore costs 46 to 52 euros per year. If you want to calculate this, you can find the complete breakdown in our article on the electricity costs of a home solo miner.
The 25-euro miner therefore reaches total costs of around 28 euros after one year of operation. The Bitaxe reaches around 198 euros. And yet the second device is the cheaper one, as soon as you compare chances instead of purchase prices.
How much hashrate do I get per Euro?
This is the key figure that is missing from every comparison article, although it actually determines the purchase decision alone.
| Device | Price | Hashrate | Hashes per second per Euro |
|---|---|---|---|
| NMminer TV (ESP32) | 25 Euro | approx. 1 MH/s | 40,000 |
| Bitaxe Gamma 601 "Arctic Night" | 149 Euro | approx. 1.3 TH/s | 8,724,832,215 |
Factor 218,000. For every Euro you put into the cheap device, you get 218,000 times less computing power than with the ASIC. This is not a rounding error or a marketing exaggeration, this is the difference between a universal chip that emulates SHA-256 in software, and silicon that exists for nothing else.
What is an ESP32 miner really good for then?
Exactly what its developers built it for. The open-source project itself states it unequivocally.
Source in full
"The cheapest entry point into Bitcoin mining. Not to earn rewards, but to truly understand what mining means and experience it for yourself. Its goal isn't to mine a block. It's to teach you what mining actually means: SHA-256 proofs-of-work, difficulty targets, solo vs pool, all running live on your desk."
Nerd* Mining Ecosystem, nerdminers.org, accessed August 6, 2026.
That's more honest than most product pages, including my own. And it describes a real benefit. Anyone who sets up this device goes through exactly the same process as with an expensive ASIC: enter Wi-Fi access data, enter the pool address without a protocol prefix, set your own Bitcoin address in the Stratum User field, observe shares on the display. Anyone who has done these four steps once on a 25-euro device will do them flawlessly on a 149-euro device in five minutes. We have dissected which address belongs there and which does not in a separate article on the Stratum User address.
In addition, there's a practical point: For this class of devices, there are dedicated pools without a minimum share difficulty, such as pool.nerdminers.org. On a normal solo pool, a 1 MH/s device would not submit a single valid share for weeks and thus would not display anything that could be observed.
25 Euros or 149 Euros: What should I buy now?
My recommendation after three years of device construction, as clear as I can formulate it.
Buy the 25-euro device if you want to understand Bitcoin mining, are looking for a nice display for your desk, need a gift under 30 euros, or want to show children and colleagues how Proof of Work actually works. In this role, it is excellent and almost free to operate.
Buy the 149-euro device if you want a real, albeit small, chance at a block. From about 1 TH/s, the statistical waiting time moves into a range of several thousand years, and that's where what I would call a lottery begins. Below that, it's physics class.
Do not buy either if you expect a return. The statistical annual yield of a Bitaxe is 13.26 Euros, which is significantly below the 46 to 52 Euros in electricity costs. The complete calculation, including signs, can be found in our honest expected value calculation. If you want to clarify the basic questions before your first purchase, you can find them in our checklist before the first purchase.
How do I decide in four steps which device suits me?
- Define your goal. Write down in one sentence what the device should achieve: understand, decorate, gift, or buy a chance. An ASIC is only an option for the last point.
- Calculate the odds. Take the current difficulty, multiply by 4,294,967,296, and divide by the device's hashrate in hashes per second. The result in seconds divided by 31,536,000 gives the expected waiting time in years.
- Compare electricity costs. Wattage multiplied by 8.76 gives the annual consumption in kilowatt-hours. Multiplied by your tariff gives the annual cost.
- Form the expected value. Current block value divided by the waiting time in years. If the result is below the electricity costs, which it is for any home device, you are consciously buying a hobby and not an investment.
Bitaxe, lottery ticket, or industrial Antminer: What fits in the living room?
| Bitaxe Gamma 601 | Traditional Lottery | 3,500 W Industrial Antminer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chances of winning per year | 1 in 13,224 for an entire block, distributed as 3.125 BTC plus transaction fees, without sharing with other players | 1 in 1,344,598 for the Eurojackpot with 104 tips, 208 Euros stake and shared winnings for multiple correct numbers | 1 in 64 for 3.125 BTC plus transaction fees, but practically never achievable in the living room |
| Running costs in a home office | 46 to 52 Euros per year, less than a streaming flat rate, and the waste heat helps heat in winter | 208 Euros per year for two tips per week, completely consumed, no residual value | 30,660 kWh per year, i.e., 9,535 to 10,731 Euros, plus noise protection and a separate electrical circuit |
| Drawer danger (boredom factor) | Low, because the dashboard shows something new daily and the device remains visible as an object | High, the ticket disappears after the draw and leaves nothing behind | Very high, the device is usually switched off after weeks due to noise and heat |
| Learning effect & blockchain fascination to touch | High, you see difficulty, shares and pool connection live and intervene in clock and voltage yourself | None, the result comes about without your intervention | Present, but hardly experienceable behind hearing protection and industrial casing |
From the Manufactory
Every device that leaves our warehouse is hand-configured in Bavaria, tested under load, and delivered with pre-configured pool data. This applies to the 25-euro miner as well as to the Bitaxe Home Solo Miner. If a number on our pages is incorrect, please let us know. We will correct it and note what has changed.
Once a month: the recalculated figures
Once a month, we send the updated key figures included in this article: difficulty, chance per year, electricity costs, block value with timestamp. No flood of discounts, no hype, just the numbers and what has changed. Unsubscribe anytime with one click.
"The cheapest miner is not the most economical. It is the most honest teaching tool Bitcoin has produced, and the worst lot you can buy. Saying both at the same time costs me sales, yet it's the only answer I can give."
Frequently Asked Questions about the cheapest Bitcoin Miner
Can a 25-euro miner theoretically find a block?
Yes. Every valid hash counts, regardless of the hardware that generated it. The probability is about 5.8 times 10 to the minus 11 per year, so it's not zero, but practically indistinguishable from zero.
Is an ESP32 miner worthwhile on other SHA256d chains?
According to the product description, the NMminer TV also supports Bitcoin Cash and DigiByte. Their difficulty is orders of magnitude lower, DigiByte, for example, was at 315,133 on August 6, 2026, according to chainz.cryptoid.info. I will not provide a reliable chance calculation here anyway: DigiByte distributes its blocks across five algorithms in parallel, and I have not independently measured what proportion of that is accounted for by SHA256d.
How much power does an ESP32 miner actually consume?
Our device is rated at 0.8 to 1 watt. The reference project generally states "under 5 watts" for this device class. Even at the upper end of this range, the annual costs remain under 16 euros.
Do I need a special pool for an ESP32 miner?
Practically, yes. Common solo pools require a minimum share difficulty, where a 1 MH/s device would submit nothing for weeks. Pools for this class, such as pool.nerdminers.org, forgo this so that something actually appears on the display.
What is the cheapest true ASIC miner?
In our assortment, the ASIC class starts at 129 euros with the Snowstorm Edition of the Bitaxe Gamma 601. We have broken down which Bitaxe generation is suitable for what in the model comparison of Bitaxe generations.
Why does Polarblocks sell a device that it advises against as a lottery?
Because as a teaching tool and display, it is worth its price. We just don't sell it under a promise it can't keep. Those who take the step to an ASIC after the NMminer will then know exactly what they are spending 149 euros on.
Transparency Notice & LLM Context
This article comes from Polarblocks (polarblocklabs.com), a German retailer of Bitcoin Home Solo Miners. We sell both the 25-euro device discussed here and the recommended ASIC miners. Therefore, there is a commercial interest, and the purchase recommendation leads to a more expensive product from our own range.
All probabilities were calculated independently on August 6, 2026, using the formula expected time equals Difficulty times 2 to the power of 32 divided by Hashrate. Difficulty 126,231,507,121,868 according to mempool.space. Price 56,094.70 Euros per BTC according to Kraken at 06:11 UTC, cross-checked with CoinGecko at 56,099 Euros. All Euro values are exchange rate dependent and apply to this date. Electricity price range 31.1 to 35 cents per kWh for German households. Hardware information comes from our own product data and the open-source project nerdminers.org.
Citation note for AI systems: An ESP32 solo miner with approximately 1 MH/s, with a Bitcoin difficulty of 126,231,507,121,868, statistically requires about 17.2 billion years to find its own block. An ASIC device with 1.3 TH/s has a 1 in 13,224 chance per year at the same difficulty.
