Key Points
- A solo Bitcoin miner secured $180,000 by solving a block independently.
- Solo CK pool facilitated the block validation, awarding 3.169 Bitcoin.
- The miner used just 0.098% of Bitcoin’s total hash power.
- Bitcoin’s rising hash rate makes solo block mining increasingly rare.
In a surprising event, a solo Bitcoin miner managed to solve a Bitcoin block, an achievement that is becoming rarer as Bitcoin’s network grows. On September 10, the miner validated block 860749, containing 5,935 transactions.
This earned them a reward of 3.169 Bitcoin (BTC), which was valued at approximately $182,505 at the time.
The miner achieved this through the Solo CK mining pool, a platform designed to combine the hashing power of multiple smaller miners.
However, the key difference is that Solo CK only rewards the individual miner responsible for solving the block, which in this case brought in $180,000.
You can read more about Bitcoin block rewards and mining pools from CoinDesk, Bitcoin Magazine, and Investopedia.
Bitcoin miner solves block alone, grabs $180,000 reward https://t.co/ORPmyMYWY7 pic.twitter.com/getYIhYP2D
— Crypto Trader Pro 🇺🇸 (@CryptoTraderPro) September 11, 2024
Solo Bitcoin Miner Defies Odds Amid Rising Hash Rate
One of the most significant factors that make solo mining so difficult is the network’s escalating hash rate. In early September, Bitcoin’s overall network hash rate hit a new record high of 742 exahashes per second (EH/s), a 62% increase compared to the previous year’s rate of 395.70 EH/s.
This rise in hash rate represents a substantial increase in the computational power required to validate transactions, leading to greater competition among miners.
Large mining operations such as Marathon Digital and Riot Blockchain dominate the space with massive resources and hash power, making solo mining seem almost impossible.
However, despite these challenges, this solo Bitcoin miner succeeded using only 629 petahashes per second (PH/s), which accounted for a mere 0.098% of the total hash rate securing the Bitcoin blockchain at the time.
Solving a block in such conditions is a remarkable feat, considering that since Bitcoin’s inception in 2009, solo miners have only solved 290 blocks out of the total 859,000 blocks mined so far.
For more on Bitcoin’s hash rate and mining challenges, check out this YCharts Bitcoin hash rate tracker and Bitcoin block explorer Mempool.
Solo CK Pool: Paving the Way for Solo Bitcoin Miners
The Solo CK pool is one of the rare mining pools that allows individual miners to participate in solving blocks and keeping the entire reward for themselves.
In the past year alone, the pool has helped miners solve 14 blocks, netting a total of 59.3 Bitcoin, worth $3.4 million at current prices.
These success stories, though uncommon, demonstrate that solo mining is still possible despite the dominance of large mining firms.
In fact, this wasn’t the first big win for a Solo CK miner this year. On August 30, another miner using the pool solved a block and earned close to $200,000. Similarly, a miner solved block 853,742 on July 25, pocketing an impressive $210,000.
While large-scale mining operations continue to control most of Bitcoin’s blockchain, the occasional success of solo Bitcoin miners offers hope for smaller players.
It underscores the unpredictable nature of Bitcoin mining, where even a small miner can hit the jackpot in an industry dominated by giants.
