Parasite Mining Pool Strikes Again, Finds Second Bitcoin Block

A revolutionary bitcoin mining pool, Parasite Pool, has once again proven the effectiveness of its unique hybrid model. The pool, which was launched in April 2025, has now successfully mined its second block, number 945,601, roughly 48 days after its first block at #938,713 in late February. This block contained 7,398 transactions and 0.002 BTC in fees, and was mined when bitcoin was trading at $76,213. The pool's innovative approach has no equivalent in mainstream mining, as it combines elements of both the industrial pay-per-share model and the pure lottery approach. In this system, the winning miner who solves a block receives 1 BTC outright, while the remaining 2.125 BTC plus fees are distributed proportionally among all pool participants based on shares submitted since the previous block. Notably, there are no fees associated with participating in this pool, and payouts are made through the Lightning Network. The mining process, which involves computers competing to solve a cryptographic puzzle every 10 minutes, is crucial for securing bitcoin. The winner of this competition earns the right to add the next block of transactions to the blockchain and receives a reward, currently set at 3.125 BTC plus transaction fees, worth approximately $238,000 at Friday's price. This reward is scheduled to decrease to 1.5625 BTC in 2028. The mining landscape is dominated by industrial operators with vast, warehouse-scale facilities of specialized ASIC hardware, which consume significant amounts of electricity. To mitigate the variance in block discovery, mining pools were created to combine the hashrate of thousands of participants, allowing proceeds to be split based on contribution rather than a winner-take-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 like CKpool, which pay the full block reward minus a 2% fee to the finder, Parasite Pool splits the difference. The 1 BTC finder's fee maintains the lottery-style payday, while the proportional distribution of the remainder ensures that participants continue to receive satoshis during the periods between blocks. The discovery of the second block holds more significance than the first, as the pool has retained its hashrate throughout 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, down from a peak of 182 PH/s in June 2025. This accounts for roughly 0.005% of bitcoin's estimated 1-zetahash network hashrate. The trend of solo and small-pool mining has been gaining momentum, with instances of home miners beating significant odds to claim substantial rewards. For example, a 230 terahash-per-second home miner recently won block 943,411 and a $210,000 reward, while another operator rented $75 of cloud hashrate to validate block 938,092 via CKpool for a $200,000 payday. Both of these wins followed the winner-take-all model minus a 2% fee. Parasite Pool is the first at this scale to test the effectiveness of a hybrid split in maintaining participant engagement during losing stretches. The discovery of a third block within the next two months would solidify the case for Parasite's model, while a six-month drought would suggest that the first two blocks were the easier ones to find.