Solo Bitcoin Miner secures the entire block reward of 3,125 BTC

One Bitcoin miner defied the odds by independently solving network block 841,286, which allowed them to acquire a full reward of 3,125 BTC.

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 Single Block

On April 29, Con Kolivas, a software engineer and admin of the solo mining group ckpool, shared on X that a miner (and not a large company) had solved the 282nd solo block in Bitcoin history, a rare case

Kudos to miner 365ughTgK9Q7rXXTM7vubqy1awZ2AZJijP for solving block 282 solo solved at https://t.co/UWgBvLkDqc with a great ~120PH at the time (12PH average for a week) https://t.co/btUXBoC8 pic.twitter.com/yh0VkuAI5b

— Dr -ck (@ckpooldev) April 28, 2024

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

Kolivas analyzed the block resolution summary and speculated that this large miner had recently switched from cluster mining after the halving, probably because it no longer covered the electricity costs for cluster mining, in search of a chance on a solo blog. Alternatively, they may have been hashing or renting large amounts on their own intermittently.

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

The difficulty of mining individual blocks is increasing

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

In March 2023, a solo miner successfully claimed the entire 6.25 BTC reward for solving a block. However, Bitcoin prices were considerably lower during this time, causing the bounty to be valued at around $150,000.

The most recent solo block was mined on April 5th, just a couple of weeks before the half. 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 network’s average hash rate currently stands at 618 EH/s (exa hashes per second), reaching an all-time high of 728 EH/s on April 23rd. This represents an increase of more than 90% compared to the past. 12 months, showing the exceptional nature of the latest solo mining achievement.

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