Rent hashrate or buy a Bitaxe? The sums for 2026
A NerdQaxe++ costs €327 at Power Mining plus electricity; renting the same 4.8 TH/s costs €222 a year. When renting is cheaper, country by country, and your odds of a block.
If you want to mine solo, you can buy a home miner or rent hashrate. Power Mining in Latvia does both: it builds the Bitaxe Gamma and the NerdQaxe++, and it also rents out the same hashrate as a ‘virtual miner’. We put the prices of 16 October 2026 side by side, with the electricity price in each country and the network figures of that day.
At a glance
- In the first year, renting is cheaper. Renting 4.8 TH/s costs €221.99; buying a NerdQaxe++ with the same hashrate costs €326.70, plus €203 of electricity at the average EU household price.
- After that it turns, but not everywhere. From year two a miner of your own only costs electricity, while renting costs €246.99 a year. At the EU average price, buying only becomes cheaper after about eight years; in Germany, never.
- Neither pays for itself. On average, 4.8 TH/s earns about €50 a year. Solo, you don’t get that on average: you get it all at once, or never.
- Bitcoin cash gives far better odds: with 4.8 TH/s, about 6% a year of finding a block worth around €770, against 0.024% for a bitcoin block worth €226,000.
What does renting cost?
Power Mining rents out four virtual miners, each with the hashrate of an existing device. You pay a start fee, which reserves the hashrate for you for twelve months, and then a running fee every three months of €2 per TH/s per month. According to Power Mining, that running fee replaces your electricity bill. Paying twelve months up front works out about 5% cheaper.
The code CRYPTOCODES takes 10% off the start fee and off every running fee in the first year. Through our page on renting hashrate the code is already filled in at Power Mining. If you rent through our link, we receive a commission; you pay nothing extra.
These prices include 21% VAT, as Power Mining shows them for the Netherlands; in another country it charges that country’s VAT, so your price may differ by a few per cent. After twelve months the rental continues at the same prices, without the first-year discount, unless you cancel. You can cancel at any time; the miner then runs to the end of the period you have paid for.
What does buying cost?
Both come with a power supply in the box. On top of that comes electricity, which depends on where you live. A NerdQaxe++ running all year uses about 700 kWh; a Bitaxe Gamma about 160 kWh.
Rent or buy: the sums
For 4.8 TH/s, at the average EU household price (€0.29 per kWh) and with the code for both. The amounts are cumulative:
At the EU average, buying only becomes cheaper after about eight years, and only if the miner keeps running day and night all that time. On the other hand, a miner of your own is still worth something afterwards, and in winter it warms your room a little; how much that saves is in miner as a heater. For the small Bitaxe Gamma the ratio is similar: buying costs €155 in the first year including electricity, renting €61.99.
Country by country
The electricity price decides. If power costs more than about €0.35 per kWh, a NerdQaxe++ uses more electricity in a year than the rent costs, and renting is always cheaper.
Average household prices according to Eurostat, including taxes. To check it with your own price, use the mining calculator.
What does it earn?
Renting and buying give you exactly the same odds: what counts is the hashrate, not who owns the device. With 4.8 TH/s and the network figures of 16 October:
On average that is around €50 a year, while renting costs €222 to €247 a year and buying, with electricity, €530 in the first year. Solo mining is therefore not an income but a lottery ticket: by far the most likely outcome is that you win nothing, as Power Mining says itself in its terms. On top of that, the network hashrate usually grows, so your odds shrink a little every year.
Choose bitcoin cash and your odds are hundreds of times better, while the prize is hundreds of times smaller. On renting hashrate you will find a bitcoin ticket and a bitcoin cash ticket side by side for each virtual miner, calculated live.
When buying suits you better
- You want to tinker yourself: firmware, settings, your own pool. You can also point a miner of your own at our solo pool.
- Your electricity is cheap, or you have surplus from solar panels.
- The heat is welcome, in a cold room or in winter.
- You want to be left with something you can resell after a few years.
When renting suits you better
- You don’t want a device, a fan or extra heat at home.
- Your electricity is expensive, as in Germany or Belgium.
- You want to try it for a year first, without paying hundreds of euros up front.
- You want to be able to stop without being left with a device.
Frequently asked questions
Is renting hashrate cheaper than buying a miner?
In the first year, yes: renting 4.8 TH/s costs €221.99 with the code, buying a NerdQaxe++ €326.70 plus electricity. After that, buying can become cheaper, but only if your electricity costs less than about €0.35 per kWh. At the EU average price, that takes about eight years.
How much does it cost to mine one bitcoin?
With a NerdQaxe++, the electricity per bitcoin found on average comes to about €267,000 at the EU average price, more than three and a half times the price on 16 October. With rented hashrate it is about €324,000. Solo, you also don’t find a single bitcoin, but a whole block or nothing.
Is mining bitcoin at home still worth it?
Not as an income: at a normal household price, electricity costs more than a miner earns on average. As a lottery ticket, out of interest or to support the network, yes, as long as you see the money as the price of a chance.
Do you pay for electricity when you rent hashrate?
No. The electricity is included in the running fee of €2 per TH/s per month; nothing at home uses power.
Can I point rented hashrate at my own pool?
Not at Power Mining: there you only give your address. At HashStrike from MineShop and at NiceHash you choose the pool yourself; see our article on HashStrike and the NiceHash guide.
Sources
- Power Mining, order form and FAQ on the cost of virtual miners: hashrate.powermining.io/onboard, read on 16 October 2026; prices including 21% VAT for the Netherlands.
- Power Mining, terms of the rental service: hashrate.powermining.io/terms, read on 16 October 2026.
- Power Mining, product pages for the Bitaxe Gamma and the NerdQaxe++: price, power draw and power supply in the box, read on 16 October 2026.
- Discount code CRYPTOCODES: tested in the powermining.io basket on 28 September 2026; checked in the rental service’s order form on 16 October 2026.
- Electricity prices: Eurostat, table nrg_pc_204, households using 2,500 to 5,000 kWh a year, second half of 2025.
- Network hashrate and prices: our own database on 16 October 2026, 17:50 UTC (bitcoin €72,488 and 1,035 EH/s; bitcoin cash €245.52 and 3.98 EH/s).
- Odds, average return and break-even points: our own calculation based on the sources above.