Home mining: mine Bitcoin at home, with power costs per device

Home mining means a small ASIC miner runs in your home. It joins a mining pool over WiFi and works on the next block for your own Bitcoin address. The devices we sell draw between 15 and 220 watts, and most practical questions follow from that one number: the power bill, the fan noise, the heat in the room and therefore the right spot for it. The figures below come from our product data. Where we have no measured value, we do not quote one.

How mining at home works

The miner fetches a job from the pool, runs through SHA-256 hashes at high speed and reports qualifying results back as shares. You follow it in a browser: AxeOS on the Bitaxe and NerdOS on the Nerdaxe, NerdQaxe and NerdOctaxe show hashrate, temperature and accepted shares. There is no manufacturer account and no app involved.

Your choice of pool decides how you take part. In a regular pool many miners share the reward by contribution, so small amounts arrive regularly. In solo mining your address sits in the block template: if your device finds a valid block, the reward goes to you, and otherwise you receive nothing. You can switch at any time by entering a different pool. Endpoints, fees and starting difficulty of the solo pools are listed in the solo pool comparison.

The pool username is your Bitcoin address, ideally from a wallet whose keys only you hold. Which device comes from which open project, and what exactly is open about it, is covered on open-source Bitcoin miners.

Power cost per device

Since a miner never takes a break, every hour of the month counts: 730 on average (8,760 hours a year divided by 12). That gives the formula monthly cost = watts ÷ 1000 × 730 × price per kWh. The table assumes €0.30 per kilowatt-hour and uses the power draw from our product data. Where the data gives a range, you see both ends.

If your rate is higher or lower, the cost scales in proportion: at €0.40 per kWh multiply the figures by 4/3, at €0.25 by 5/6. The mining calculator works it out for your own rate and any device. Running costs drop when the miner only runs on cheap power, for example on surplus from a solar system (mining with solar power), in the cheap hours of a dynamic electricity tariff or automatically through Home Assistant.

Noise: what you will hear

Almost everything you hear is the fan, and it spins faster the more heat has to go. We only have decibel figures for a few devices and fans, so here is the picture by power class:

• One chip, 15 to 33 W (Bitaxe Gamma 601, Nerdaxe Gamma, Nerdaxe Gaia and the Copper Pro versions): a small fan, quiet enough for a desk in normal operation. The Bitaxe Gamma 601 is also available with a Noctua NF-A4x20, rated at 14.9 dB.
• Two to six chips, 35 to 90 W (Bitaxe GT 801, NerdQaxe ++, Bitaxe Supra Hex 702): the fan is audible. How much it bothers you depends on the room and on how much space the device has around it.
• 150 to 220 W (Bitaxe Gamma Hex 1300, NerdOctaxe, NerdOctaxe Hydro): the NerdOctaxe is audible while it runs and relies on active cooling. In the Hydro, water carries the heat to a radiator, which keeps it comparatively quiet for its output. On the Gamma Hex 1300 you hear the radiator fan and a second fan at the back.
• Avalon Nano 3S: our product data lists about 29 dB in low mode and 36 dB in high mode; independent tests measure up to 40 dB depending on distance.

Heat: nearly every watt stays in the room

Electrically, a miner is a small heater: almost every watt it pulls from the socket comes back out as heat. For a Bitaxe Gamma 601 that is around 0.4 kWh a day, which you will barely notice. A NerdOctaxe Hydro at 220 W releases about 5.3 kWh a day into the room, and in a small room you will feel it. In winter that heat replaces part of your heating; in summer it has to leave the room somehow. What 220 W of waste heat really does over a winter is worked out in the NerdOctaxe Hydro as a space heater.

For temperature and lifespan, airflow around the device matters most. Give the miner free space, a few inches from the wall, and never put it in a closed cabinet where warm air builds up. Cooling upgrades add headroom: the ICE Tower Low Profile for Bitaxe and Nerdaxe, the AXP60 Copper Pro for the Bitaxe Gamma and Nerdaxe Gaia, and the AXP90 Copper Pro for the NerdQaxe ++ and NerdOctaxe, whose 92 mm fan is rated by the manufacturer at no more than 22.4 dB(A).

Placement, power supply and WiFi

• Power supply: every device ships with its own matching power supply. Only three models work at 5 V: the Bitaxe Gamma 601, the Gamma Copper Pro and the Nerdaxe Gamma. The remaining Bitaxe and Nerd models need 12 V, and the Avalon Nano 3S has a supply of its own. Never swap power supplies between models.
• WiFi: Bitaxe and Nerd devices only use the 2.4 GHz band. If the miner cannot find your network because the router combines 2.4 and 5 GHz under one name, split off the 2.4 GHz band or set up a guest network on 2.4 GHz. The Avalon Nano 3S also has an Ethernet port.
• Fixed address on your network: reserve a fixed IP for the miner in your router so the web interface always sits at the same address. Do not expose it to the internet; it belongs on your home network behind the router.
• Dust: clean the heatsink and fan now and then. A clogged cooler costs efficiency and pushes the temperature up.

Setup in six steps

Bitaxe, Nerdaxe, NerdQaxe and NerdOctaxe all set up the same way. All you need is a phone or laptop with a browser:

1. Plug in: place the device with space around it and connect the power supply from the box.
2. Join the setup network: on first start the miner opens its own WiFi network, Bitaxe_XXXX on a Bitaxe and Nerdaxe_XXXX on the Nerd devices. Connect to it.
3. Enter your home WiFi: open http://192.168.4.1 in the browser, enter your 2.4 GHz network and its password, and save. The miner restarts.
4. Open the web interface: the miner shows its new IP on its display; for a device without one, look it up in your router. Type that address into the browser.
5. Enter pool and address: the pool's Stratum address and port (usually 3333), your Bitcoin address as the user, for the fallback pool as well, and usually x as the password. Ideally you paste the address straight from your wallet.
6. Check: after saving, the accepted shares start counting up. Keep an eye on the temperature for the first few hours.

Both setting up a Bitaxe and setting up a Nerdaxe walk through the setup in more detail; pool values and the fallback pool are explained in setting up a mining pool. New firmware goes on through the web interface or in the browser with our firmware flasher. The Avalon Nano 3S has its own interface from Canaan, where you enter pool and address as well.

Which device suits which spot

• Desk: the Bitaxe Gamma 601 at around 1.3 TH/s, or the Nerdaxe Gamma with the same hashrate and a 1.9-inch display. The Nerdaxe Gaia with the BM1373 gets more hashrate per watt: around 2.6 TH/s at 25 W.
• Living room, with space around it: the NerdQaxe ++ with four chips and around 4.8 TH/s.
• Study or spare room: the NerdOctaxe with eight chips and around 12 TH/s. With water cooling, the NerdOctaxe Hydro reaches around 14 TH/s.
• In a closed case: the Avalon Nano 3S with three power modes. It runs Canaan's firmware, which is not open source.

Every device with hashrate, power draw and price side by side is in the miner comparison.

Payment and shipping

You can pay by card, PayPal, SEPA transfer or with Bitcoin and Lightning; paying in Bitcoin gets you 5 % off. In-stock devices leave us within 24 hours, shipped from the EU, and our support is there for your questions.