How to Solo Mine BCH in 2026

Solo mining Bitcoin Cash means pointing a SHA-256 ASIC at the BCH network on your own, so that if your hardware solves a block, the entire reward is paid straight to your wallet by the coinbase transaction — no pool split, no payout request, no custodian. In May 2026, a SoloFury miner running a single Antminer S21+ solved BCH block #950338 and received 3.0971 BCH directly on-chain. That’s the whole proposition: one correctly configured ASIC, pointed at the right chain, and a wallet that wakes up heavier than it went to sleep.

Key takeaways

• BCH, not BTC, is where one ASIC matters. A single S21+ averages roughly four months to a BCH block — versus about 79 years on Bitcoin with the same hardware.
• Setup is genuinely a few minutes: get a BCH wallet, paste its address as your stratum username, point at the pool, save.
• It’s non-custodial. The pool never holds your coins; the network pays your wallet directly, so the address you configure must be exactly right.
• The economics are tight at mid-2026 prices. With BCH near $190, solo BCH on an S21+ is roughly break-even at cheap or hosted power and negative at typical residential rates — the appeal is the realistic shot at a whole block, plus upside if BCH recovers.
• Scaling compounds your odds linearly: a handful of rigs pulls the average toward monthly; ten toward biweekly.

Why BCH and not BTC?

The most common mistake new solo miners make is buying an ASIC and immediately pointing it at Bitcoin. The numbers explain why that’s the wrong move. An Antminer S21+ delivers about 235 TH/s. Bitcoin’s network runs near 980 EH/s; Bitcoin Cash runs around 3.5 EH/s. Same SHA-256 algorithm, same hardware — but the network sizes differ by roughly 250×, and that ratio is the entire difference between a realistic solo target and a multi-decade lottery.

BCH is where a single S21+ becomes a real proposition: a mean of about four months for a roughly $600 block on a chain with the same algorithm, deep liquidity, and broad exchange support. Be honest about the economics, though. At mid-2026’s BCH price (around $190), the expected reward of roughly $5/day barely covers the electricity of a ~3,300 W rig at $0.10/kWh — this is closer to break-even than to easy profit. The case for solo BCH today rests on two things: a genuinely realistic chance of solving a whole block as a small operator, and optionality if the BCH price recovers (it has been volatile, down sharply over the past month). If you want catchable wins with steadier economics, the smaller SHA-256 chains are worth a look in our best coins to solo mine guide.

What you need before you start

• The rig — an Antminer S21+ (or S21, S21 Pro, S21 XP Hydro, or any SHA-256 ASIC). A 200-240V circuit and a network cable.
• A BCH wallet — your address is your miner’s identity and the destination for any block reward.
• A stable internet connection — stratum needs almost no bandwidth (~1 KB/s) but it needs uptime; minutes offline at the wrong moment cost you tickets.
• Cooling and ventilation — an S21+ dumps roughly 3,300 W of heat, like a space heater running 24/7.
• Sound tolerance or distance — at ~75-80 dB it’s “lawnmower in the next room.” Most miners use a garage, basement, dedicated room, or hosting facility.

Step 1 — Get a BCH wallet

Solo mining is non-custodial: the pool never holds your funds. The block reward is paid directly by the network, via the coinbase transaction, to the wallet address you set as your stratum username. Wrong address means wrong recipient, permanently. Take this step seriously.

Hardware wallets (recommended for serious miners)

• Ledger Nano S Plus / Nano X — native BCH support via Ledger Live; the best balance of security and usability.
• Trezor Model One / Model T — native BCH support, open-source firmware.
• Coldcard Q — BTC-focused but supports BCH via PSBT workflows; air-gapped, for the cautious.

Software wallets

• Electron Cash — the de facto BCH wallet, open source, desktop and mobile, generates standard CashAddr addresses. electroncash.org
• Bitcoin.com Wallet — mobile-first, easy onboarding for newcomers.
• BitPay — multi-coin wallet with hardware-wallet integration.

Address format: modern BCH wallets generate CashAddr addresses starting with bitcoincash:q… (or just q…). Older wallets may give a legacy address starting with 1…. Both receive fine, and SoloFury accepts either as a stratum username — but CashAddr is the modern default.

Critical: generate the wallet, write the seed phrase on paper, store it offline, and verify you can restore from the seed before you start mining. If you solve a block to a wallet whose seed you never backed up and the device fails, the BCH is gone.

Step 2 — Configure your ASIC

Access the miner’s web UI

Power on the rig, wait 60-90 seconds for it to boot and pick up a DHCP IP, and find that IP via your router’s lease table or Bitmain’s discovery tool. Open http://[miner-ip]/ in a browser. Default Bitmain credentials are root / root — change them on first login.

Stratum configuration

Go to Configuration → Miner Configuration. You’ll see three pool slots — a primary and two failovers. Configure them like this, substituting your own wallet address and any worker label you like:

Pool 1 (primary):  stratum+tcp://bch.solofury.com:7070
Pool 2 (failover): stratum+tcp://bch.solofury.com:7071
Pool 3 (failover): stratum+tcp://bch.solofury.com:7072
Worker:   YOUR_BCH_WALLET_ADDRESS.worker1
Password: x
Lower latency: eu-bch.solofury.com (EU) or asia-bch.solofury.com (APAC)

Three things to get right:

1. Wallet address before the dot. This is where the BCH goes if you solve a block. Copy-paste it, never type it, and verify the last four characters match.
2. Worker name after the dot. Just a label to identify the rig on the dashboard — worker1, basement-rig, whatever helps you.
3. Password = x. Solo pools conventionally ignore the stratum password. Don’t overthink it.

Click Save. The miner reconnects within about 30 seconds; the Status page should show “Mining” and a connection to bch.solofury.com.

Verify from the pool side

Open the SoloFury miner dashboard and paste your BCH address into the search field. Within ~30 seconds your worker should appear ● ONLINE with hashrate climbing toward ~235 TH/s. If it doesn’t show after a couple of minutes, check the stratum URL for typos, confirm the wallet address has no extra spaces, make sure the miner is reachable on your network, and verify your firewall isn’t blocking outbound TCP on ports 7070-7072.

Step 3 — Monitor your mining

The dashboard is your home base; it refreshes automatically every ~30 seconds. The metrics that matter:

• Status — green means your worker is submitting shares and the pool is acknowledging them. Red usually means network connectivity.
• Your hashrate — live (5-minute) and 24-hour averages. A stock S21+ should sustain ~225-235 TH/s; 5-10% spikes and dips are normal sample-timing noise.
• Best share — the best share you’ve submitted this luck cycle. When it hits or exceeds network difficulty, you’ve found a block. Watch this number climb.
• Network share — your percentage of the BCH network. One S21+ on a ~3.5 EH/s network is roughly 0.006%; four rigs ~0.024%; ten ~0.06%. Bigger share, more frequent blocks.
• Net difficulty — current BCH difficulty (recently in the ~450-580G range). BCH uses ASERT, which adjusts every block, so this moves continuously: when it drops, your odds improve.

Step 4 — Enable AsicBoost

AsicBoost (version-rolling) is a protocol-level optimization that lets compatible ASICs hash slightly more efficiently for the same power. SoloFury supports it natively on the stratum server. On a recent Antminer S21+ (stock firmware from 2024 or later) it’s enabled by default — verify under System → Mining Status, where a “Version Rolling” or “VR” indicator should be active. On Braiins OS+, VNish, or LuxOS firmware it’s on by default and typically adds ~5-12% efficiency over stock, improving both your odds slightly and your power bill meaningfully. (For the full mechanism, see our AsicBoost deep dive.)

Step 5 — Heat, power, and physical setup

An S21+ at full throttle produces roughly 3,300 W of heat — about 11,250 BTU/hour, comparable to a small residential heat pump. You will feel it in any closed room.

Power requirements

• Voltage: 200-240V (it won’t run on standard US 120V without a step-up transformer).
• Current: ~15A at 240V — use a dedicated 30A circuit with a NEMA 6-30 or L6-30 outlet.
• PSU: the stock APW12 (3,300W rated). Don’t undersize.
• UPS: optional but recommended; even a small surge can soft-brick the control board.

Cooling

The S21+ pulls 200+ CFM through its heatsinks and exhausts hot air from one end. Don’t enclose it in a cabinet, don’t sit it next to fabric or paper, and don’t run it in a hot attic. Workable environments: a ventilated garage (easy in winter, AC or careful airflow in summer), a dedicated room with an exhaust fan, a cool basement, or a third-party hosting facility — typically the right call for two or more rigs, with rates around $0.06-0.10/kWh and professional cooling.

Power costs and break-even

At 3,300 W continuous: about $7.92/day at $0.10/kWh, $11.88/day at $0.15/kWh, and roughly $24/day at European rates near $0.30/kWh. Against an expected reward of roughly $5/day at current BCH prices (one ~$600 block per ~120 days):

• $0.06/kWh (hosting): ~$4.75/day power → roughly break-even on power alone.
• $0.10/kWh: ~$7.92/day power → modestly negative expected at today’s BCH price.
• $0.30/kWh (EU retail): clearly negative without subsidized power, a hosting deal, or a BCH price recovery.

This is the honest state of solo BCH economics in mid-2026: cheap or hosted power keeps you near break-even, residential power runs at a loss, and the upside case depends on the block lottery landing and/or BCH appreciating. That’s why hosting facilities and low-cost-power miners dominate — and why this guide frames BCH as a realistic block-finding chain rather than a guaranteed-profit one. Model your own rate in the profitability calculator.

Step 6 — Optional: custom firmware

Stock Bitmain firmware works fine, but custom firmware can squeeze out 5-15% better J/TH on the same hardware — lower power bills and slightly better expected value:

• Braiins OS+ — open-source, autotuning, sophisticated overclocking; free, with a small hashrate dev fee. braiins.com/os
• VNish — closed source, autotuning, polished UI, popular in the rental market.
• LuxOS — enterprise-focused with strong telemetry; works with any stratum.

For a single rig you may not bother. For a fleet of five or more, custom firmware usually pays for itself within weeks.

What happens when you actually find a block

Sometime between hour one and year one, your dashboard will look different: your best share equals or exceeds network difficulty, and the pool records a solved block. Within about ten minutes the BCH network confirms it, and the coinbase transaction lands in your wallet — spendable within a few confirmations. The technical flow:

1. Your ASIC submits a share that satisfies network difficulty (a cryptographically rare event).
2. The stratum server validates the share and assembles the block.
3. The block is broadcast to the BCH network via the pool’s node.
4. Other nodes verify and accept it, then start building the next block on top.
5. The coinbase output sends the block subsidy plus fees to the wallet address you configured — directly, without intermediate custody.
6. The pool’s 1% fee goes to a separate output in the same coinbase transaction.

Verify your block on-chain at Blockchair, bch.loping.net, or 3xpl, and look for the “SoloFury” tag in the coinbase scriptSig — that’s your proof.

Troubleshooting

My hashrate is lower than expected

A stock S21+ should sustain 220-240 TH/s. If you’re at 180-200, suspect voltage sag (an underspec PSU, a long power cable, or a shared circuit), overheating (chip temps above 85°C trigger throttling), a wrong frequency profile, or hardware errors above 2% from a degrading hashboard.

I’m getting rejected shares

Some rejects are normal — usually 0.1-0.5% on a healthy setup. A higher rate suggests too much latency to the pool (try a closer regional endpoint), stale shares from slow work delivery, or miner clock drift (confirm NTP is enabled under System → Time).

My worker disconnects randomly

Almost always a network issue. Use stable wired Ethernet (never WiFi for ASIC mining), make sure your two failover pool slots are configured, and check that no router QoS rule is throttling outbound TCP on the stratum ports.

Scaling up: more rigs and rental hashrate

Adding rigs is simple: same wallet address, different worker names (YOUR_WALLET.worker1, worker2, and so on). The pool aggregates all your hashrate under one wallet, but each rig submits independently and the reward — when it lands — goes to that single address. Roughly: four rigs pull the average toward one block a month, ten toward biweekly, twenty toward weekly.

Renting hashrate is the way to participate without buying hardware. MiningRigRentals lets you rent SHA-256 hashpower by the hour or day; point it at SoloFury’s BCH stratum with your wallet address as the username, and the math works exactly as owned hardware. As a rough sense of scale, a budget in the tens of dollars can buy on the order of 1 PH/s for a day — several times an S21+ — giving roughly a 3-4% daily shot at a BCH block (about 1 in 28). Repeated rentals accumulate odds, and timing them during a low-difficulty window is a legitimate edge. Your hashrate, your wallet, full reward if you hit.

The honest bottom line

Solo mining BCH with an S21+ is one of the rare corners of crypto where the math actually rewards a patient operator with modest hardware — not with guaranteed profit at today’s prices, but with a genuinely realistic shot at a whole block, paid in full and direct. No NFT hype, no validator games, no governance theater. Just SHA-256, electricity, and time. Set it up carefully, verify the wallet address three times, monitor occasionally without obsessing, and let variance be variance: long stretches of nothing, then an abrupt jackpot. That’s the whole game — and when your first block lands, you’ll understand why people keep at it.

Frequently asked questions

Is solo mining BCH profitable in 2026?

At mid-2026 prices (BCH around $190), an S21+ is roughly break-even at cheap or hosted power (~$0.06/kWh) and runs at a loss at typical residential rates. The real draw is the realistic chance of solving an entire ~$600 block as a small miner, plus upside if BCH appreciates — not steady daily profit.

How long until I find a BCH block with one S21+?

The mean is about 120 days at current network size, but mean isn’t median. Because block-finding is a Poisson process, roughly half of miners find one within ~83 days, while about a quarter wait beyond ~166 days. Being at day 150 with nothing is completely normal.

Why mine BCH instead of Bitcoin?

Same hardware, same algorithm, vastly smaller network. A single S21+ averages about four months to a BCH block versus roughly 79 years on Bitcoin. BCH is where one ASIC is a realistic solo proposition rather than a multi-decade lottery.

What wallet should I use for BCH solo mining?

A hardware wallet (Ledger or Trezor) for security, or Electron Cash as a solid free software option. What matters most is that you control the seed phrase and have tested a restore — the block reward is paid straight to your address with no custodian to recover it from.

Do I need to register or pass KYC?

No. Solo mining on a non-custodial pool requires no account and no KYC. Your wallet address is your identity; you simply point your miner at the stratum endpoint and start hashing.

What is the password field for?

Nothing meaningful on a solo pool — the convention is just the letter x. Your identity is the wallet address in the username field; the password is ignored.

Can a Bitaxe solo mine BCH instead of an S21+?

Yes, but the odds scale with hashrate. A ~1 TH/s Bitaxe on BCH averages on the order of 75 years per block, and an ~11 TH/s NerdOCTAxe around seven — fun and educational, but far slower than an S21+. See can a Bitaxe find a block?

What happens if two miners find a block at once?

The network briefly sees two competing blocks and resolves it within a block or two as nodes build on whichever propagates fastest; the orphaned one’s reward is reversed. In practice, with confirmations this is rarely an issue for the winning miner — wait a few confirmations before treating the reward as final.