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Crypto Miners Direct

Hardware guide

Avalon Nano 3S vs Bitaxe Gamma - Small Bitcoin Miners Compared

Compare the Avalon Nano 3S and Bitaxe Gamma on published hashrate, power, supply and setup, and see what solo mining odds look like at this size.

Last reviewed October 7, 2026 by James Emerson

Both are small Bitcoin miners for a desk or shelf. The Avalon Nano 3S is a finished Canaan product rated at 6 TH/s and up to 140 W, set up through a phone app. The Bitaxe Gamma is an open-source single-chip board on 5 V DC, configured in a web browser and pointed at any Stratum pool (Stratum is the protocol miners use to talk to a pool); its project estimates it at about 1.2 TH/s. The figures below are what Canaan and the Bitaxe project publish, not measurements.

Key points

  • Published figures. Nano 3S: 6 TH/s and 140 W maximum (Canaan). Gamma: about 1.2 TH/s (project estimate) on a 5 V supply that can deliver more than 4 A, or 20 W.
  • Solo odds. At an illustrative network hashrate of 1,000 EH/s (exahashes per second; 1 EH/s is a million TH/s), the chance of a block within a year is about 1 in 3,170 for one Nano 3S and 1 in 15,900 for one Gamma.
  • Household load. 140 W is under a tenth of a 1,500 W space heater.
  • 601 and 602. These are Gamma board revisions with the same chip. The project publishes no separate rating for either.
  • Income. Neither is a source of income you can count on.

What each one is

Avalon Nano 3S

Canaan launched the Nano 3S at CES in January 2025 as an upgrade of the Nano 3. Its product page calls it "another portable small heater that can generate Bitcoin", with 12 chips on a 4-nanometre process, a circular LED screen, and a power adapter and Wi-Fi module in the box. See the Avalon Nano 3S page on this site.

Bitaxe Gamma, 601 and 602

The project. The bitaxeorg project publishes the Bitaxe's schematics, board layout and bill of materials on GitHub under the CERN-OHL-S-2.0 open hardware licence. Its ESP-Miner firmware runs on an ESP32 microcontroller and serves a web dashboard, AxeOS. Independent sellers build the boards.

The chip. The Gamma uses one BM1370, the chip in Bitmain's Antminer S21 Pro. The README derives the hashrate from that machine: 234 TH/s across 195 chips is about 1.2 TH/s per chip.

Board revisions. The project's GitHub releases list four:

  • 600 (October 2024), the first release.
  • 601 (January 2025), which added a 4-pin fan connector and improved fan routing.
  • 602 (April 2025): "DFM and routing improvements", where DFM means design for manufacturing.
  • 603 (February 2026), with no notes.

601 versus 602. ESP-Miner gives both the same defaults, 525 MHz and 1,150 mV, and expects 525 × 2,040 cores ÷ 1,000 = 1,071 GH/s, about 1.07 TH/s. The only difference in ESP-Miner's settings for the two boards is the factory self-test power target: 19 W for the 601 and 22 W for the 602, each with a 3 W margin. These are test thresholds, not ratings.

Seller listings, including this site's Gamma 601 and Gamma 602 pages, sometimes quote different hashrate and power for the two; those figures come from the listing's source, not the project.

Published specifications

Canaan's site blocked automated requests on 2026-10-06, so the Nano 3S figures come from Internet Archive copies of Canaan's own pages (see Sources).

Avalon Nano 3S (Canaan) Bitaxe Gamma (project)
Hashrate 6 TH/s About 1.2 TH/s (README estimate)
Power 140 W maximum Not rated. The supply must deliver more than 4 A (20 W) at 5 V
Efficiency (J/TH, joules per terahash: watts ÷ TH/s) Not published. 140 ÷ 6 = 23.3 J/TH, derived from maximum power Not rated. The README cites Bitmain's chip-level 15 J/TH and says the Gamma gets "pretty close"
Power supply 28 V, 5 A (140 W) GaN (gallium nitride) adapter included, using USB Power Delivery 3.1 5 V DC only, 5.5 × 2.1 mm centre-positive barrel jack
Noise 30–40 dB (product page) or 33–40 dB (shop page), no distance stated Not published
Cooling Air-cooled (Canaan shop page) Heatsink plus a 5 V PWM (speed-controlled) fan, which is required
Connectivity USB port with the included Wi-Fi module; also supports LAN access Wi-Fi on board; USB-C for flashing firmware
Size and weight 205 × 115 × 58.5 mm, 0.86 kg Not published; depends on the build
Operating temperature −5 to 30 °C Not published

Neither power figure is a wall measurement. Canaan does not say whether its 140 W is at the wall or at the adapter output, and AxeOS estimates power as the chip regulator's output plus a fixed 5 W, excluding the external supply's losses. For a true figure, use a plug-in energy meter at the outlet and divide the watts by the hashrate your pool reports.

Power, heat and household circuits

Nearly all the power becomes heat, about 3.412 BTU/h (British thermal units per hour) per watt. Illustrative inputs: the Bitaxe rows use 20 W (the project's minimum supply output) and 30 W (the top of its suggested supply rating), and electricity is $0.15 per kWh.

Set-up Power kWh per day kWh per 30 days Heat Current at 120 V Cost per 30 days at $0.15/kWh
Avalon Nano 3S at its maximum 140 W 3.36 100.8 478 BTU/h 1.17 A $15.12
Bitaxe Gamma, illustrative 20 W 0.48 14.4 68 BTU/h 0.17 A $2.16
Bitaxe Gamma, illustrative 30 W 0.72 21.6 102 BTU/h 0.25 A $3.24

These loads are small but continuous. Under North American practice (NEC), a 15 A, 120 V circuit carries 1,440 W continuously (80% of 15 A × 120 V). One Nano 3S uses under 10% of that; ten, at 1,400 W, would nearly fill the circuit on their own. If you plan several units, add up their power and have a qualified electrician confirm the circuit can carry it.

Bitcoin Mining at Home covers heat reuse, noise and placement.

Solo mining and lottery odds

Each hash is an independent try at a value below the network's target. The network finds about 144 blocks a day, and your chance at each is your share of total hashrate:

expected blocks per day           = 144 × your hashrate ÷ network hashrate
chance of at least one in t days  = 1 − e^(−expected blocks per day × t)

The network hashrate below is an illustrative 1,000 EH/s (10^9 TH/s), a round number for the arithmetic rather than a current value.

Set-up Hashrate Expected blocks per year Chance of a block within a year Average wait
One Bitaxe Gamma 1.2 TH/s 0.0000631 About 1 in 15,900 About 15,900 years
One Avalon Nano 3S 6 TH/s 0.000315 About 1 in 3,170 About 3,170 years
Ten Avalon Nano 3S 60 TH/s 0.00315 About 1 in 318 About 317 years
  • Solo mining is all or nothing. The finder of a block receives the 3.125 BTC subsidy plus transaction fees, less any solo pool service fee. Everyone else receives nothing.
  • No block is ever due. A year without a block leaves next year's odds unchanged.
  • Pools smooth the outcome. A pool shares rewards in proportion to your work, minus its fee; at 1–6 TH/s your share is small, and many pools hold it until a minimum payout.
  • Same expected value. Before fees, solo and pool mining have the same expected value; solo only makes the outcome lumpier.

Neither route promises a reward. See the mining calculator for current values.

Setup and pool configuration

Avalon Nano 3S, as Canaan describes it

  1. Plug the included Wi-Fi module into the USB port. Canaan does not guarantee that other Wi-Fi modules, RJ45 adapters or USB hubs will work.
  2. Power the unit from the included adapter.
  3. Set it up in the Avalon Family app. It connects to a preset F2Pool account; you scan the QR code on the F2Pool service card in the box.

Canaan's product page does not describe changing the pool or solo mining; check its app documentation first if either matters to you.

Bitaxe Gamma, from the project's documentation

  1. Power. Use a 5 V DC supply that meets the project's rating. Other voltages share the same connector and will damage the board.
  2. Cooling. Confirm the fan is fitted and running; the project says the heatsink alone is not enough.
  3. Dashboard. Join it to your Wi-Fi and open AxeOS at its IP address or bitaxe.local.
  4. Pool. Enter the pool's Stratum address and port, a worker name (usually your payout address plus a label) and password. The factory configuration files contain a default pool and address, so replace any pre-set values.
  5. No hashrate. Check the router: ESP-Miner's README says features such as AiProtection and IoT settings on some ASUS and TP-Link routers block mining.
  6. Tuning. Raise frequency or voltage only while watching temperature; the README warns that the Gamma overheats easily with the stock heatsink and fan.

How to choose

If you want Avalon Nano 3S Bitaxe Gamma
More hashrate per unit 6 TH/s About 1.2 TH/s
Lower power draw Up to 140 W 5 V supply rated above 20 W
Simpler setup Phone app and preset pool Web dashboard; you enter the pool
Open hardware and firmware Not described as open source on Canaan's page Published design files and firmware source
Warranty 360-day limited warranty from first registration, per Canaan Whatever the builder offers

The home miners listing shows the small machines on this site.

Sources