Every miner has that moment staring at the dashboard, wondering: “Did I just get close to a block?” This is my little LBD (Looking Back Data in this case, although perhaps you're a little [LAPSE... brain dead] from reading it!) post on one specific session where I hit a Best Share of 145.5M. What makes this run even more fun is that it was completely solar powered — running off a GoLabs R150 power bank fed by a Renogy 100W panel plus a Volt Hero 20W panel wired in parallel for a combined 120W of solar input. Off‑grid mining at its finest 😄(* “free” electricity to run the thing, but it cost me $150+ of equipment to get there). And all of that powering a tiny Bitdsk N5.Rex ASIC miner — a little 9‑watt unit that somehow manages to push out around 168.8 Gh/s while sipping power like a phone charger.
The Snapshot
- Hash Rate: 168.80 Gh/s
- Share Accept: 108,905
- Share Reject: 0
- Pool Difficulty: 156
- Net Difficulty: 127,450,789,715,843
- Best Share: 145,500,000 (145.5M)
On the surface, that Best Share number looks big. It feels like you’ve punched way above the usual tiny shares that roll in nonstop. But the real question is: how close is 145.5M to actually solving a block?
Best Share vs. Block Difficulty
The Net Difficulty is the effective “target size” you need to beat to find a valid block. In this case:
Net Difficulty: 127,450,789,715,843
Best Share: 145,500,000
If we compare the two:
145,500,000 ÷ 127,450,789,715,843 ≈ 0.00000000114
That’s about 0.000000114% of the difficulty needed for a block. Another way to say it: my best share was roughly 1 in 875,000,000 of the way there. Or, put it yet another way: the share difficulty was about 875 million times smaller than the network difficulty required for a block.
So… Was I “Close”?
Emotionally? It feels nice to see a Best Share in the hundreds of millions. Technically? No, it wasn’t close to a block in any meaningful sense.
But that doesn’t mean it was useless. A higher Best Share:
- Shows the rig is working correctly and producing valid shares.
- Confirms the expected distribution of share sizes at that hash rate.
- Reminds you what “luck” really looks like in mining.
At around 168 Gh/s, finding a full block solo would statistically take an absurd amount of time. Pools exist precisely because the odds are stacked that hard against any single miner.
The Hashrate Story Behind the Graph
The hash rate graph for this session bounced between roughly 120 and 180, with peaks near the top end. That kind of fluctuation is normal and can be influenced by:
- Temperature and throttling on the hardware.
- Background processes or system load.
- Network and pool-side reporting delays.
- Solar input variability — clouds, panel angle, and the 120W combined feed into the GoLabs R150 can nudge the miner’s stability during certain parts of the day.
Despite the ups and downs, the rig held steady enough to push out over 108,000 accepted shares with zero rejects, which is a nice clean run by any standard — especially for a setup powered entirely by sunlight.
What This Session Really Tells Me
This LBD moment isn’t about bragging rights. It’s about perspective:
- Mining is a probability game, not a guarantee.
- Even “big” shares are microscopic compared to block difficulty.
- Consistency matters more than one lucky-looking number.
My 145.5M Best Share is a reminder that I’m playing in a space where luck is measured in astronomical odds. The rig is healthy, the shares are flowing, and the math is brutally honest — all while running off a tiny solar array and a portable power station.
Closing Thoughts
So, how close did I get to a block? Realistically: not close at all. But I did get a clear, data-backed glimpse into just how far “far” really is.
And that’s the heart of this LBD post: looking back at the numbers, grounding the feelings in math, and accepting that in mining, you can be doing everything right and still be 874,999,999 steps away. (And yes, I know it’s “lottery mining”… that’s the whole ridiculous charm: I’m basically scratching a digital ticket with sunlight!)
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