Solo Miner Beats the Odds, Bags $180K Bitcoin Block Reward

A Bitcoin miner recently achieved the rare accomplishment of independently processing a block, earning approximately $180,000 in the process. Block 860749, mined on September 10, included 5,935 transactions and rewarded the miner with 3.169 Bitcoin, worth around $182,505 at the time. The mining pool responsible was Solo CK, according to Bitcoin block explorer Mempool.space.

While solo miners solving blocks is uncommon due to the immense computational power (hashrate) required, it is still possible. A mining pool like Solo CK is a collaborative network where miners combine their individual hashrate to increase their chances of solving a block. When a block is solved, the reward is usually distributed among all participants proportional to their contribution. However, in Solo CK’s case, the reward is only given to the individual miner who successfully solves the block, even though they are part of the larger pool of contributors.

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In this instance, the miner solved the block with 629 petahashes of hashrate, representing a mere 0.098% of the total network power, which was 644.91 exahashes per second (EH/s), according to Bitcoin tracker YCharts.

Since Bitcoin’s launch in 2009, solo miners have solved only 290 out of the 859,000 total blocks produced. Most blocks are typically validated by large mining companies like Bit Digital, Riot Blockchain, and Marathon Digital, which have significantly more hash power.