Solo Bitcoin miner wins the 3.125 $BTC lottery, solving valid block
A solo miner achieved a remarkable feat by solving Bitcoin block 841,286 alone, earning the full 3.125 BTC block reward, valued at approximately $200,000 at the time.
Software engineer and ckpool administrator Con Kolivas announced on X that this miner, with a hash rate of around 120 petahashes per second (PH/s), equal to about 0.12 exahashes per second (EH/s), successfully mined the 282nd solo block in Bitcoin's history. Their average hash rate over a week was approximately 12 PH/s, which represents only about 0.02% of the total network hash rate.
The block reward reduction from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, which occurred during the #BitcoinHalving at block 840,000 on April 20, made block 841,286 worth $200,000. Kolivas speculated that the miner may have switched from pooled mining after the halving to try their luck at solo mining or intermittently mined large amounts solo.
#Mining a block solo is an extremely rare event, akin to winning the lottery, as it has only occurred 282 times out of the 841,300 blocks produced since Bitcoin's inception 14 years ago. The increased popularity of mining due to rising asset prices has led to heightened competition and hash rate, making solo mining almost impossible.
In March 2023, a solo miner earned the entire 6.25 BTC reward for solving a block, valued at around $150,000 at the time. The most recent solo mined block before block 841,286 was on April 5, when a miner with 7 PH/s hash rate earned approximately $422,750.
Currently, the average network hash rate stands at 618 EH/s, reaching an all-time high of 728 EH/s on April 23. This represents a more than 90% increase over the past year, making the recent solo mining achievement even more exceptional.
Source - cointelegraph.com
