Mining is a margin business, not a lottery
Your earnings are simply your share of the network: divide your hashrate by the total network hashrate, multiply by how many blocks are mined per day and the block reward. That's your coins; price turns them into revenue. The pool takes a cut, and then the real enemy shows up — electricity. Power cost is fixed and relentless: a 3,000 W rig at $0.10/kWh burns $7.20 every single day whether the coin pumps or dumps.
That's why the break-even electricity price below the result matters more than the coin price headline. Above that $/kWh, your rig loses money the moment you switch it on. And because network difficulty climbs as more miners join, your fixed hashrate earns a shrinking share over time — a rig that's green today can go red in months with the price unchanged. Model a higher network hashrate to see how fast your margin erodes.
Mined coins still carry market risk after you earn them. If you plan to hold, check the downside with the drawdown recovery calculator; if you sell on-chain, the BTC fee and ETH gas tools show what moving them costs. Prefer passive yield? Compare against staking rewards.
FAQ
Where do I find network hashrate and block reward? Any block explorer or mining-stats site lists current network hashrate (often in EH/s for Bitcoin) and the block reward. Bitcoin's reward is 3.125 BTC after the 2024 halving.
Does this include hardware cost? No — this is operating profit. To find payback, divide your rig's purchase price by the monthly net profit shown above.
Why is my real payout slightly different? Pools vary in fee model (PPS vs PPLNS), variance, and uptime; this is a steady-state estimate, not a guaranteed payout.