Will stakepool rewards statistically even out over time if I run a pool with a small stake?

Question

If I start a pool with a large pledge of around 170k ADA but I struggle to get people to stake to my pool and I just end up having only the 170k pledge of ADA staked to the pool the entire time the pool is run will the rewards I earn eventually make running a pool worthwhile?

I'm thinking long term, like 5-10 years, and not considering the costs of running the pool such as electricity, equipment, and an internet bill. I'm just comparing running a stakepool with a large stake to just staking it in an already well performing pool.

I think I'd like to take the chance of running a pool but I don't want to sink my bag into a pool that makes me nothing if I could have it in a larger pool and earn rewards.

Also, I realize that cardano.org has a calculator for calculating stake pool rewards but it doesn’t give much indication on what rewards would be for smaller stakes.

Answer 1

The rewards of staking on Cardano are, on average, 5% APY.

At the moment, a pool with 170K ADA of stake has a 12.89% chance of producing a block per epoch (you can check the "Rewards" tab of this pool for reference, as it has that same amount of stake: https://adapools.org/pool/34736425217f45cc1f6e59a88bd253e50b90f47ea206ec7f26afdfc5). This means that, to produce a block every epoch, you need to have a stake of 1.4M ADA at least.

In your case, and probabillistically, you'll be signing a block every 7.75 epochs (1 epoch has 5 days in Cardano's blockchain). One year has 73 epochs, so you will be signing a block in 9.41 of those epochs. Every epoch you mint a block, as an operator, you'll get 340 ADA on top of your rewards (this is the most usual fixed fee for SPOs).

I run a stake pool and I can assure you that, if you won't be promoting it or at least trying to get more delegators to join your pool, then I reckon that with that amount of stake it's better for you to join a pool. I would consider running my own pool without caring about delegators at least with a chance of 50% of minting a block each epoch. But this is just my opinion.