In the competitive world of Bitcoin mining, a solo miner has managed to process a block on their own, securing a reward of approximately $180,000. This event underscores the significant but rare success individual miners can achieve within the largely industrial-scale mining operations dominating the sector.
On September 10, the miner successfully processed block 860749, which included 5,935 transactions. The reward for this block was 3.169 Bitcoin, valued at around $182,505 at the time, and was claimed by the mining pool Solo CK. Despite its name suggesting individual mining, Solo CK actually aggregates the computational power of various smaller miners and awards the block reward to the individual miner who successfully solves the block.
Technical Details of the Mining Achievement
The successful miner deployed 629 petahashes of computational power to solve the block, which represents only 0.098% of the total Bitcoin network’s hashrate. At the time of solving, the total power securing the Bitcoin blockchain was 644.91 exahashes per second (EH/s), as recorded by Bitcoin transaction tracker YCharts. This event occurred just after the Bitcoin hashrate reached a new all-time high of 742 EH/s on September 1, reflecting a 62% increase from the previous year.
Mining Bitcoin independently is an increasingly challenging endeavor due to the rising hashrate, which demands more computing power, escalates energy costs, and prolongs verification and transaction times. Historically, solo miners have successfully solved a block only 290 times out of the 859,000 blocks mined since Bitcoin’s inception in 2009.
The dominance of large mining firms like Bit Digital, Riot Blockchain, and Marathon Digital is notable as they command massive amounts of hashing power, typically validating the majority of blocks. In contrast, the successes of solo miners, while significant, are comparatively rare and often highlighted as exceptional achievements within the community.
Solo CK Pool’s Track Record
Solo CK itself has been responsible for solving an additional 14 blocks in the past year, earning a total of 59.3 Bitcoin, valued at approximately $3.4 million. Noteworthy is another solo miner from the Solo CK pool who processed a block on August 30, earning nearly $200,000. Furthermore, on July 25, another miner from the same pool hit a jackpot by solving block 853,742, with a reward of about $210,000.
The ability of solo miners to solve blocks, though infrequent, highlights the decentralized nature of Bitcoin and the potential for individual participants to still reap significant rewards. It also raises questions about the scalability of solo mining and its viability in a landscape increasingly dominated by large-scale operations.
