A lone Bitcoin BTC/USD miner achieved a remarkable feat on Sunday, successfully solving a complete block and securing a total reward exceeding $360,000.
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Lucky Break for Independent Miner
Block number 910440, encompassing 4,193 individual transactions, was mined in the early morning hours. According to information sourced from Mempool, the successful mining operation was carried out by an individual miner utilizing the Solo CK pool. Details here.
The miner received a transaction fee amounting to 0.012 BTC. Combined with the standard block reward of 3.125 BTC, their total earnings reached 3.137 BTC. At the current exchange rate, this equates to $362,376.
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Solo Mining: A Game of Chance
According to Con Kolivas, administrator of the CK solo mining pool, the successful miner deployed a substantial computing power of 9 PetaHashes per second to solve the block.
Kolivas commented, “A miner with this level of processing power faces approximately a 1 in 800 chance of successfully mining a block each day.”
Individual Mining vs. Pool Mining: Key Differences
Solo mining stands in contrast to pool mining, a collaborative approach where miners pool their resources to increase their chances of successfully mining a block. However, pool participants are typically required to pay fees, which can reduce their overall profitability.
Conversely, solo mining eliminates the need to pay fees to a pool operator. However, it necessitates significant upfront investment and comes with a lower probability of discovering a block due to the reduced aggregate hash power.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty, an indicator of the complexity involved in finding a valid block, has consistently increased over time. This trend has led to a growing demand for substantial hash power and significant investments in specialized and costly mining hardware.
Market Update: As of this report, BTC is trading at $115,517, a decrease of 2.13% over the last 24 hours, based on data provided by Benzinga Pro.
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