Solo Miner Achieves Significant Bitcoin Block Reward
In an impressive display of individual effort, a solo miner succeeded in mining a Bitcoin block on Sunday, securing a reward of 3.137 BTC, equivalent to around $371,000 at that time. This achievement was made possible through the Solo CK pool, tailored for miners operating solo, as they mined block number 910,440.
Details of the Reward
The total earnings comprised the base reward of 3.125 BTC supplemented by transaction fees of approximately 0.012 BTC, yielding an additional $1,455 from 4,913 transactions.
Challenges for Solo Miners
Despite the current landscape being dominated by large industrial mining entities, the odds of a solo miner achieving such a block reward remain exceedingly slim. However, those equipped with effective hardware can sometimes strike gold. This year has seen multiple solo miners with basic configurations make headlines by claiming block rewards independently. Examples include a miner who struck it rich back in February and another who celebrated a $350,000 reward on July 4. Furthermore, another success story emerged on July 27 when a miner amassed a block reward worth $373,000.
Insights from Industry Experts
Samuel Li, the Chief Technology Officer at ASICKey—a company specializing in mining equipment—spoke about this phenomenon to Cointelegraph. He clarified that the success of solo miners isn’t solely due to luck; rather, they leverage “powerful, efficient hardware”.
Li highlighted how contemporary mining gear is engineered to achieve high hashrates while minimizing power consumption, a significant improvement over traditional machinery.
Mining Probability and Network Difficulty
Despite these advancements, the probability of successfully mining a block as a solo operator remains largely unchanged, often resembling a form of gambling. A miner needs to harness at least tens of petahashes per second (PH/s) to realistically compete at a significant level within a reasonable timespan. As per Li’s calculations, possessing a single PH/s of hashpower equates to a meager 1 in 650,000 chance of solving a block approximately every 10 minutes.
Current Mining Environment
The current mining environment presents difficulties even for established firms due to the skyrocketing network difficulty. An increase in Bitcoin’s network difficulty, which stood at a staggering 129 trillion recently, coupled with a diminished block reward owing to the recent Bitcoin halving, has impacted mining operations severely. Trends indicate that the difficulty continues to rise.
In light of these challenges, several prominent mining companies are diversifying their operations into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) sectors to mitigate the repercussions of these adversities in the mining arena.
