Parasite Pool Mines Second Bitcoin Block, Validating Hybrid Mining Model

A pioneering Bitcoin mining pool, Parasite Pool, has achieved its second block, demonstrating the effectiveness of its distinctive hybrid model. This model combines elements of both the industrial pay-per-share approach and the pure lottery system. On Friday, the pool mined block 945,601, which included 7,398 transactions and 0.002 BTC in fees, with Bitcoin trading at $76,213 at the time. The pool's operation is based on a novel hybrid system, where the winning miner receives 1 BTC directly, and the remaining 2.125 BTC, along with fees, are distributed proportionally among all participants based on their contributed shares since the previous block. Notably, there are no fees associated with participating in this pool, and payouts are efficiently routed through the Lightning Network. The primary function of mining is to secure the Bitcoin network by having computers compete to solve complex cryptographic puzzles every 10 minutes, with the winner earning the right to add the next block of transactions to the blockchain and receiving a reward. Currently, this reward consists of 3.125 BTC plus transaction fees, valued at approximately $238,000 at Friday's price. The mining landscape is predominantly dominated by large-scale industrial operators utilizing specialized ASIC hardware that consumes significant amounts of electricity. Mining pools were created to mitigate the variance in block findings, allowing the hashrate of thousands of participants to be bundled together so that the proceeds are split based on contribution rather than a winner-takes-all approach. Parasite Pool, founded by the pseudonymous ZK Shark, the creator of the Ordinal Maxi Biz NFT collection on Bitcoin, specifically targets home miners. Unlike pure solo pools such as CKpool, which pay the full block reward minus a 2% fee to the finder but result in most participants never finding a block, Parasite Pool splits the difference. By preserving a 1 BTC finder's fee, the pool maintains the excitement of a potential lottery payday, while the proportional distribution of the remainder ensures that participants receive satoshis during the periods between block findings. The mining of the second block holds more significance than the first, as the pool has successfully retained its hashrate through the 48-day gap between payouts, and the proportional distribution mechanics have now been validated twice. According to the pool's dashboard, Parasite's current hashrate is 52 petahashes per second, which is down from its peak of 182 PH/s in June 2025. This represents roughly 0.005% of Bitcoin's estimated 1-zetahash network hashrate. There has been a notable trend in solo and small-pool mining, with instances such as a 230 terahash-per-second home miner beating 1-in-28,000 odds to claim a block and a $210,000 reward, and another operator renting cloud hashrate to validate a block via CKpool for a $200,000 payday. Parasite Pool is the first at this scale to test whether a hybrid split model can sustain participant engagement through losing stretches. The mining of a third block within the next two months would further validate Parasite's model, while a six-month drought would suggest that the first two blocks were anomalous.