Parasite Mining Pool Strikes Again, Finds Second Bitcoin Block

A revolutionary bitcoin mining pool, Parasite Pool, has made history by mining its second block, number 945,601, on Friday morning. This achievement comes roughly 48 days after the pool's first block at #938,713 in late February. The block contained 7,398 transactions and 0.002 BTC in fees, with bitcoin trading at $76,213 at the time. The pool operates on a distinctive hybrid model, where the winning miner receives 1 BTC, and the remaining 2.125 BTC plus fees are distributed proportionally among all participants based on their shares submitted since the previous block. Notably, there are no fees to participate in this pool, and payouts are made through the Lightning Network. The idea behind this model is to provide a middle ground between the industrial pay-per-share model and the pure lottery approach. By doing so, Parasite Pool aims to smooth the variance of block findings, allowing participants to receive consistent payouts. Founded by ZK Shark, the creator of the Ordinal Maxi Biz NFT collection, Parasite targets home miners. Unlike pure solo pools like CKpool, which pay the full block reward minus a 2% fee to the finder, Parasite's approach splits the difference. The 1 BTC finder's fee maintains the excitement of a potential lottery payday, while the proportional distribution of the remainder ensures that participants receive satoshis consistently, even during the stretches between blocks. The second block mined by Parasite carries significant weight, as it demonstrates the pool's ability to retain hashrate through the 48-day gap between payouts. Moreover, the proportional distribution mechanics have now been validated twice, providing further proof of the pool's effectiveness. Currently, Parasite's hashrate sits at 52 petahashes per second, which is approximately 0.005% of bitcoin's estimated 1-zetahash network hashrate. The success of Parasite Pool comes at a time when solo and small-pool mining has been gaining traction. Recent reports have highlighted the achievements of home miners, including one who beat 1-in-28,000 odds to claim a $210,000 reward and another who rented cloud hashrate to validate a block via CKpool for a $200,000 payday. Parasite is the first pool at this scale to test a hybrid split, and its continued success will be closely watched. A third block mined within the next two months would provide further validation of the pool's model, while a six-month drought would raise questions about its long-term viability.