Solo Mining Achievement
In a remarkable feat for solo miners, an individual successfully mined Bitcoin block 957,382, earning 3.1382 BTC, roughly valued at $200,000. Utilizing a Bitaxe device, which operated for eight hours via Public Pool, the mining machine managed to submit its winning share and secure a significant payout. This amount consists of 3.125 BTC from the block subsidy and an additional 0.0132 BTC collected from transaction fees. According to Public Pool, this was only the second instance of a standalone Bitaxe mining a block through their hosted service. Official blockchain records verify the successful mining of block 957,382.
Mining Power and Probability
The Bitaxe device reported an average computing power of about 995.2 gigahashes per second, a figure just shy of one terahash per second. While this may sound impressive, it constitutes a mere fraction of Bitcoin’s overall network power, which is typically in the hundreds of exahashes per second. Estimates from CoinDesk suggest that, given its hash rate, a miner with such a setup would statistically find a Bitcoin block roughly once every 18,000 years. This figure is based on probability—every valid hash contributes to the chances of discovering the next block.
Bitaxe Device Specifications
The Bitaxe Gamma is equipped with a BM1370 chip, similar to what is found in Bitmain’s larger Antminer S21 Pro, and is designed for low power consumption while achieving performance around 1.2 TH/s. Unlike traditional mining pools that distribute rewards among participants based on their contributions, Public Pool enables solo miners to keep the entire bounty if they successfully mine a block, making such triumphs particularly lucrative. In their announcement, Public Pool proudly stated,
“Block #2 on hosted Public-Pool. By a lone Bitaxe.”
Recent Trends in Solo Mining
Recent data shows that solo miners have discovered 24 Bitcoin blocks over the past year, marking a 41% rise from the previous period. Twelve of these blocks were mined in 2026. Other recent solo mining successes have occurred using CKPool and minimal home-based mining setups. Notably, a solo miner netted approximately $271,000 in December 2025 for mining block 928,351, while another mined a different block that same month for around $282,000, despite challenging odds of one in 30,000.
Challenges of Solo Mining
Although this increase in successful block mining is notable, it does not render solo mining a predictable venture. Devices like the Bitaxe retail for between $60 and $150, but the expected returns from such machines remain quite limited. Many operators could potentially run identical devices for years without yielding a single block reward. Changes in Bitcoin’s mining difficulty also impact the landscape; recently, the difficulty was reduced by 5% to 127.17 trillion at block 957,600 on July 11, in response to slower block generation and diminished network hashrate. Typically, the difficulty adjustment occurs every 2,016 blocks to maintain an average mining time of around ten minutes.
This decline followed a previous 10.09% drop in June, as lower Bitcoin prices and mining disruptions diminished competition significantly. Some miners have redirected their resources to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing services due to tightening margins. This adjusted difficulty marginally enhances the odds for individual miners, including those using home setups, but still does not close the substantial disparity between the computing power of a single terahash Bitaxe and larger mining operations with millions of times that strength. The impressive $200,000 earned from this solo mining achievement remains an outlier, highlighting the competitive nature of Bitcoin mining, where small-scale operators are pitted against those with formidable hash rates.
