On Thursday, a solo bitcoin miner, operating with approximately 230 terahashes per second of computing power, successfully validated block 943,411, earning a block reward of 3.139 BTC, valued at around $210,000. Notably, this miner's share of the total network hashrate is negligible, effectively rounding to zero on most dashboards. The miner was connected to solo.ckpool.org, an anonymous solo mining pool launched in 2014, which allows operators to retain their full block rewards minus a 2% fee. Con Kolivas, the developer of CKpool, confirmed the win, highlighting that the miner had a roughly 1-in-28,000 chance of finding a block on any given day.
The winning miner, bc1qtt7cr9cxykyp9g4hq47zf5lq9t97cxvq72lun3, with a hashrate of ~230TH, solved the 312th solo block. At 230 terahashes, the winning rig accounts for approximately 0.00002% of bitcoin's total estimated hashrate of roughly 1 zetahash per second as of early April, consistent with a small-scale operation. For comparison, listed miner Riot Platforms operates at over 30 exahashes, roughly 130,000 times the hashrate of Thursday's winner. This block marks the 312th solo win on CKpool since its inception and the first since February 28, ending a 33-day drought.
Over the past 12 months, solo pools have found just 20 bitcoin blocks, distributing a combined 62.96 BTC, averaging one solo block every 18.7 days. The win continues a pattern that has repeated with surprising regularity throughout this cycle, with similar unexpected wins occurring in December and November, where miners defied significant odds to claim substantial rewards.