Is a bitcoin miner worth it? The maths
A miner now earns 3.3 cents per terahash per day. At €0.25 per kWh every model costs more in power than it earns. The sums per model, and when it still makes sense.
On 10 October 2026 a bitcoin miner earns about 3.3 cents per terahash per day. At an electricity price of €0.25 per kWh, every miner in this overview costs more in power than it earns. Depending on the model, the break-even point lies between 6 and 12 cents per kWh. Below are the sums per model, followed by the three situations in which a miner still makes sense.
Today's sums
The bitcoin network runs at about 1,020 exahash per second. Every day 144 blocks of 3.125 bitcoin are added: 450 bitcoin in total, a little over €33 million at a price of €74,113. Spread across the whole network, that is €0.0327 per terahash per second, per day. We leave out transaction fees; they add a little on top.
If the network grows, that amount falls. If the price rises, it rises with it.
What five miners earn and consume
The break-even point is the electricity price at which earnings and power costs are equal. Pay more than that and the miner costs you money every day, quite apart from the purchase price.
What they cost
MineShop shows prices without VAT by default. The amounts with VAT are MineShop's own, calculated at the Irish rate of 23%; the rate for your country is shown at checkout. The code CRYPTOCODES takes 3% off: on the Antminer S21+ that is €51 on the ex-VAT price. See the MineShop offer.
When does a miner make sense?
You already heat with electricity. A miner turns almost all its power into heat. If it replaces an electric heater, you use no more electricity than before and the earnings are a discount on your heating: about €2.94 a day for the Avalon Q if it runs all day, €0.20 for the Avalon Nano 3S. If you heat with gas or a heat pump, this does not hold: they usually deliver heat more cheaply than a kilowatt-hour of electricity. Check the numbers in our heat calculator.
You have power below the break-even point. For example your own solar power that you would otherwise feed into the grid for a few cents. Do count the hours you really have that power: a miner that runs eight hours a day earns a third of the amount in the table, and then it takes a long time to earn back the purchase.
You want to take part, not to earn. A small solo miner looks for a block on its own. The chance is small, but if it finds one, the whole block reward of 3.125 bitcoin is yours: about €231,600 right now.
At Power Mining, CRYPTOCODES takes 10% off. You can connect a miner like this to our solo pool.
Check this before you buy
- Your electricity price per kWh, including tax. Everything depends on it.
- The noise. The WhatsMiner M61 makes 75 decibels; MineShop itself compares that to a vacuum cleaner. The Avalon Nano 3S stays at 33 to 36 decibels.
- Your fuse box. A 3,500-watt miner loads a 16-amp circuit almost to the limit.
- Warranty and returns. MineShop sells the WhatsMiner M61 without a warranty and states on its product pages that sales are final and that no refunds are given.
- Stock. The Antminer S23 was not available on 10 October.
Disclosure: the links to MineShop and Power Mining and the code CRYPTOCODES belong to our partner programmes. If you buy through a link or with the code, CryptoCode receives a commission; you do not pay more, and with the code you pay less. This is a worked example, not investment advice.
Frequently asked questions
Does a bitcoin miner pay for itself?
Not at an electricity price above the break-even point: then it costs more every day than it earns. Below the break-even point it depends on the price and on how fast the network grows.
What does a miner cost in electricity?
Power in kilowatts times 24 hours times your electricity price. The 3,456-watt Antminer S21+ uses 83 kWh a day: at €0.25 per kWh that is €20.74.
How likely is a solo miner to find a block?
With 1.1 terahash per second about 1 in 17,600 per year, with 4.8 terahash about 1 in 4,000. That holds at the network's current size.
Sources
Price and network data are from 10 October 2026; prices and specifications were read that day on the shops' sites.
- Network and block reward: mempool.space, via our pool statistics.
- MineShop, prices and specifications: mineshop.eu.
- Power Mining, prices and specifications: powermining.io.