What internet connection cryptocurrency mining needs
Mining needs a stable internet connection, not a fast one. A single ASIC miner uses roughly 10–50 MB of data a day, i.e. around 1 GB a month, and gets by with a speed in the order of tens of kbit/s. What matters is that the connection does not drop and has a low, steady latency (ping) to the pool server.
How much data a miner uses
A miner talks to the pool using the stratum protocol. The pool sends it jobs (block templates) and the miner returns the shares it has found. These are small messages, so the traffic is negligible:
| Number of machines | Data per day | Data per month | Required speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 miner | 10–50 MB | 0.3–1.5 GB | tens of kbit/s |
| 10 miners | up to 500 MB | up to 15 GB | under 1 Mbit/s |
| 100 miners | a few GB | tens to low hundreds of GB | a few Mbit/s |
Only firmware updates and remote management use more data. A mobile plan with a few gigabytes is therefore usually enough for a single home miner.
Why latency and stability matter
When the network finds a new block, the pool sends miners a new job. Until the miner receives it, it keeps working on the old one. Shares sent too late are rejected by the pool as stale, and you get nothing for them.
- Latency: a steady latency of tens of milliseconds is fine. Problems start with spikes above 100 ms and with packet loss.
- Pool server: choose the nearest one. For a machine in the Czech Republic, a European server, not an Asian one.
- Outages: every minute without a connection is a minute without earnings. Once the connection is back, the miner reconnects by itself, but sometimes only after a restart.
You can see the share of rejected shares in the pool interface. If it stays higher than usual, look for the cause in the network first.
Cable or Wi-Fi
Large ASIC miners only have an RJ45 network port (for example the Antminer S21 at 10/100 Mbit/s) and belong on a cable. Wi-Fi adds fluctuating latency and dropouts, which show up as rejected shares. If the router is far away, use a cable or a powerline adapter.
The exception is small miners such as the Bitaxe, which are built for 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. Place them close to the router.
4G/5G backup
For a cottage, a garage or a place with an unreliable fixed line, a router with an LTE/5G modem is handy. Ideally as a backup: when the main line goes down, it switches to mobile data by itself. Thanks to the low data usage, a cheap data plan is enough. Just make sure the router has a constant power supply, ideally from an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).
Security
Do not expose the miner's web interface to the internet, and change the default password. For remote access, use a VPN into your home network rather than port forwarding. An attacker with access to the miner can overwrite the pool address and mine to their own account.
Related terms
- Where and how to connect a miner to the network is described in the guide Connecting an ASIC miner.
- How a pool counts shares and payouts is explained in the article PPS, PPLNS and FPPS.
- If you do not want to deal with the network and outages yourself, consider hosting in a data centre with monitoring and technical supervision.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
Is mobile internet enough for mining?
Will a miner slow down my home internet?
What happens if the internet goes down?
Do I need a public IP address?
This text was prepared with the help of AI. Facts, figures and procedures were checked by Yegor.
