A solo miner has achieved an extraordinary event in the world of cryptocurrency, successfully mining a block that yielded over $370,000 in rewards. Operating through the solo mining pool Solo CK, this miner added block number 910,440 to the Bitcoin blockchain, showcasing the unique challenges and competitive environment of Bitcoin mining.
Stunning Rewards from Block 910,440
This milestone block generated a reward of 3.125 BTC, the typical reward following the most recent halving in 2024, along with an additional 0.012 BTC from transaction fees, totaling 3.137 BTC. At the time of the mining event, this equated to roughly $362,376. Data sourced from Mempool.space revealed that the block comprised nearly 5,000 transactions (4,913 to be precise). Depending on Bitcoin’s price at the time, the total value of the reward was estimated to be around $371,576.
The remarkable aspect of this event is the difficulty involved. Con Kolivas, the administrator of the Solo CK pool, noted that despite achieving substantial computational power of 9 PetaHashes per second, the miner faced only a 1 in 800 chance of mining a block in a single day.
In fact, the odds of success every 10 minutes with one petahash of hashing power approximate a daunting 1 in 650,000. This improbability is why many miners gravitate towards larger mining pools, where rewards are shared but payouts tend to be more consistent. Although solo mining lacks pool fees, it often involves long periods of inactivity and minuscule probabilities of success.
The Challenges of Solo Mining
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has seen a recent upward trend, closely aligned with the cryptocurrency’s fluctuating prices hitting historical highs. Current figures from CoinWarz indicate that Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has reached an unprecedented peak of 129.44 Terahash, reflecting increases of 2.51% in the past 30 days and 6.39% over the last 90 days.
This rise in mining difficulty is largely driven by the emergence of large-scale industrial farms equipped with extensive ASIC fleets, pushing smaller miners to exit the competition. As a result, many miners opt to join cooperative pools, trading substantial payouts for steadier returns.
In contrast, solo mining presents a minuscule chance to capture a full block reward at less frequent intervals. As per Mempool.space data, the Solo CK miner has successfully mined only one block within the last week. While Bitcoin blocks are typically mined every 10 minutes, this miner has only succeeded in mining a total of 15 blocks over the past year.
