A lone Bitcoin miner has defied the odds by solving a Bitcoin block alone, earning the full 3.125 Bitcoin block reward. Con Kolivas, a software engineer and administrator from the solo mining pool ckpool, announced on X that a miner had successfully solved the 282nd solo block in Bitcoin’s history.
The miner had a hefty hashrate of about 120 PH/s (peta hashes per second) at the time, which translates to roughly 0.12 EH (exa hashes) and averaged around 12 PH/s over a week, representing about 0.02% of the total network hash rate.
The Bitcoin block reward was reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC during the Bitcoin halving at block 840,000 on April 20. This adjustment means block 841,286 was valued at approximately $200,000 at that time.
Kolivas speculated on the circumstances surrounding this achievement, suggesting that the large miner might have switched from pooled mining post-halving, possibly due to no longer covering their electricity costs, or they might have been intermittently hashing or renting large amounts solo.
This accomplishment is significant because solo mining a block is an infrequent event, comparable to winning the lottery. Out of the approximately 841,300 blocks produced since Bitcoin’s inception 14 years ago, this has only happened 282 times.
Mining Bitcoin involves participants using computational power to solve and add the next block to the network. However, as the price of Bitcoin rises, mining has become more popular, leading to increased difficulty and hash rate, meaning it’s almost impossible to solve a block alone.
Also Read: Bitcoin Spot ETFs in U.S. Witnessed $328M Outflows Last Week
