On Thursday, a solo bitcoin miner, operating at approximately 230 terahashes per second, successfully validated block 943,411, earning a reward of 3.139 BTC, valued at around $210,000. This achievement is notable, given that the miner's computing power represents a negligible fraction of the total network hashrate, making their success a significant upset. The miner was connected to solo.ckpool.org, a solo mining pool that has been in operation since 2014 and charges a 2% fee. Con Kolivas, the developer of CKpool, confirmed the win, highlighting that the miner had roughly a 1-in-28,000 chance of finding a block on any given day.
The winning miner, bc1qtt7cr9cxykyp9g4hq47zf5lq9t97cxvq72lun3, with a hashrate of approximately 230 terahashes, solved the 312th solo block. This represents a minuscule 0.00002% of bitcoin's estimated total hashrate of roughly 1 zetahash per second.
For perspective, listed miner Riot Platforms operates at over 30 exahashes, which is roughly 130,000 times the hashrate of Thursday's winner. This solo win marks the first since February 28, ending a 33-day drought. Over the past 12 months, solo pools have discovered just 20 bitcoin blocks, distributing a combined 62.96 BTC, averaging one solo block every 18.7 days.
This win continues a pattern of unexpected solo mining successes, including a 270 TH/s miner claiming a $284,633 reward in December, and a 6 TH/s miner beating 1-in-180-million odds to land roughly $265,000 in November.