Matt Cutler, Bitcoiner and Executive of the Pool Brains, compared the chances of processing a lolving block with those of winning the lottery.
Through an analysis published on June 16, 2025 in its X account, Cutler concluded that, thanks to the frequency of daily opportunities offered by the Bitcoin network in front of the lottery games, undermine a solo block is more than 100 times more likely than to succeed the Lotteries Mayor Prize.
Cutler starts from a key factor: The Bitcoin Network offers 144 daily opportunities of undermining a block (1 block every 10 minutes), while the lotteries are limited to an isolated raffle per week. “That frequency changes everything,” he says.
To support their calculationsCutler investigated the two most popular lotteries in the United States, Powerball and Mega Millions, and compared them with the possibilities of undermining a block using a team of a computing power (or hashrate) of 1 Terahash per second (th/s) in a bitcoin network estimated at 900 exahasos per second (eh/s).
The Brains manager also shared an image of those who could have been some of the Mini Asic considered: a Bitaxe and a BMM101 hardware of Brains.
Accumulated probabilities over time
Even knowing that the probability of undermining a block individually is low, Cutler’s approach focuses on how accumulated probabilities change the equation.
It proposes that comparisons should comply with realistic temporal frames, such as a day or a week, instead of a unique event. It dismisses the direct comparison between a block and a lottery ticket, arguing that it is appropriate to assimilate a mining day (with its 144 opportunities) to a raffle, which would imply acquiring between 46 and 48 tickets to reach equivalent probabilities.
Thus, it calculates that the probability of undermining a block in one day with a mining of 1 th/s is from 1 between 6.25 millionwhich is “46 times more likely” than the opportunity in Powerball and “48 times” in Mega Millions.
Per week, the probabilities are located at 1 between 97 million for Powerball, 1 between 151 million for Mega Millions, and 1 between 892,000 for a mining of 1 TH/S with 1,008 attempts, which implies at least 108 times more chances For this last option.
At the monthly level, with 12 Powerball, 8 of Mega Millions and 4,320 attempts in mining, the figures are 1 between 22 million, 1 between 35 million and 1 between 208,000, respectively, respectively, With at least 105 times more probability in favor of mining.
Finally, in a year, with 156 Powerball raffles, 104 of Mega Millions and more than 52,000 mining attempts, the probabilities reach 1 between 1.87 million, 1 between 2.90 million and 1 between 17,000, offering At least 110 times more successful chances with a solo mine.
Cutler emphasizes that “numbers say everything. When you repeat unlikely events, your probability of success increases cumulatively.”
“When observed over time, solo mining has many more possibilities of reaching the ‘Jackpot’,” he says, proposing that those who play lotteries could regularly obtain greater benefits by devoting themselves to mining at home.
In conclusion, Cutler’s analysis invites rethink the perception of Bitcoin mining as a purely random practice comparable to the lottery. In this way, it could be interpreted not only as a “decentralized lottery” due to its probabilistic character and its autonomy against regulators, but also as a process that escapes manipulations and fraud, unlike traditional lotteries.
