In a rare event in the world of cryptocurrency, a solo Bitcoin miner has earned a significant reward after successfully mining a block on their own.
On September 10, the miner processed block 860749, which contained 5,935 transactions, resulting in a reward of 3.169 Bitcoin, worth around $182,500. The mining pool responsible for this achievement, Solo CK, reported the accomplishment through data from Mempool.space, a Bitcoin block explorer.
What makes this event extraordinary is the rarity of solo miners solving Bitcoin blocks due to the immense computing power required. Bitcoin mining usually demands a large hashrate—the computing power used to secure the network. In this case, the miner utilized 629 petahashes per second (PH/s), which represents only 0.098% of the total network power of 644.91 exahashes per second (EH/s) at the time.
Despite the name, Solo CK is a mining pool that aggregates the hashrate of multiple miners. However, when a block is successfully mined, the reward is given to the miner responsible for solving it. Solo miners winning block rewards is quite uncommon. Out of the 859,000 total blocks produced since Bitcoin launched in 2009, solo miners have successfully mined only 290.
Mining Bitcoin has become increasingly difficult as the network's hashrate continues to grow. On September 1, the total Bitcoin hashrate reached an all-time high of 742 EH/s, marking a 62% increase compared to the previous year. This growing competition, along with rising energy costs, makes it harder for solo miners to compete with large-scale operations.
Despite the challenges, Solo CK has had a successful year, solving 14 blocks and earning 59.3 Bitcoin, valued at $3.4 million. Another solo miner from the pool recently earned nearly $200,000 after solving a block on August 30.
