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Monero mining profitability: the honest math

Explainer · October 2026 · not financial advice. All figures are estimates — check current network difficulty and your electricity price.

The formula

Your expected earnings ≈ (your hashrate ÷ network hashrate) × block reward × blocks per day, minus electricity. Three inputs you control or can look up:

• Your hashrate: XMRig reports it in H/s. A modern desktop CPU lands in the low thousands of H/s (estimate — varies widely by chip).
• Network hashrate & block reward: public on any Monero block explorer; the reward slowly declines with the tail emission.
• Electricity: your $/kWh × your CPU's wall power draw × 24h. This is the number most people skip — and the one that flips the answer.

The honest answer

• Above ~$0.15/kWh, most single CPUs mine at a loss (estimate — depends on hardware and XMR price).
• With cheap or sunk-cost electricity (already-running servers, cold climates where heat is useful), small profits are possible.
• Mined XMR has no purchase history — that privacy premium is the real product for many miners.
• Mined coins are taxable income in most countries when received. Keep records.