Solo Bitcoin Miner Secures Entire 3.125 BTC Block Reward

A Bitcoin miner defied the odds by independently solving a network block 841,286, which allowed them to acquire a full 3.125 BTC reward.

The fourth Bitcoin halving took place on April 20 at block 840,000, reducing the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, which is currently valued at around $200,000.

Bitcoin Miner Solves 282nd Solo Block

On April 29, Con Kolivas, a software engineer and administrator from the solo mining pool ckpool, shared on X that a miner (and not a large company) had solved the 282nd solo block in Bitcoin’s history, a rare case.

Congratulations to miner 365ughTgK9Q7rXXTM7vubqy1awZ2AZJijP for solving the 282nd solo block solved at https://t.co/UWgBvLkDqc with a large ~120PH at the time (12PH average over a week) https://t.co/btUXBoC8Yd pic.twitter.com/yh0VkuAI5b

— Dr -ck (@ckpooldev) April 28, 2024

Kolivas noted that this solo miner had a significant hash rate of approximately 120PH (peta hashes) at the time, equivalent to around 0.12 EH (exa hashes), with an average of around 12PH over a week. This hash rate was roughly 0.02% of the total network hash rate.

Kolivas analyzed the block-solve summary and speculated that this large miner had either recently transitioned from pooled mining post-halving, likely due to no longer covering their electricity costs for pooled mining, in pursuit of a chance at a solo block. Alternatively, they may have been intermittently hashing or renting large amounts alone.

The significance of this achievement comes from the rarity of mining a valid block solo, which is like winning the lottery. Such occurrences are exceedingly rare, with only 282 instances recorded out of approximately 841,300 blocks produced since Bitcoin’s launch 14 years ago.

Solo Block Mining Difficulty is Increasing

Mining Bitcoin involves participants contributing computational power to solve and add the next block to the network. However, with the increasing price of Bitcoin, mining has become more popular, leading to increased competitiveness, known as difficulty, and an increase in hash rate, or network horsepower. Consequently, it has become nearly impossible to solve a block alone due to this high competition.

In March 2023, a solo miner successfully secured the entire 6.25 BTC reward for solving a block. However, Bitcoin prices were considerably lower during that time, resulting in the reward being valued at around $150,000.

The most recent solo block was mined on April 5, just a couple of weeks before the halving. A solo miner successfully solved block 837,814 with a hash rate of 7PH. Notably, the reward was valued at approximately $422,750 at the time.

According to Bitinfocharts, the average network hash rate currently stands at 618 EH/s (exa hashes per second), reaching an all-time high of 728 EH/s on April 23. This is an increase of more than 90% over the past 12 months, showing the exceptional nature of the latest solo mining achievement.