In brief
- The solo miner earned 3.13 BTC ($347,872) mining block 913,632, marking the second independent mining success this month.
- It comes as Bitcoin’s mining difficulty reached record high of 136.04 trillion.
- One expert says solo mining events highlight Bitcoin’s decentralization despite industrial operations dominating the network.
A lucky solo Bitcoin miner has successfully mined a block worth over $347,000 on the world’s most competitive crypto network.
On Sunday, an independent miner successfully processed block 913,632 using Solo CKPool, earning a total reward of 3.13 BTC valued at $347,872.
The block contained 593 transactions totaling 473.61 BTC worth $52.6 million, with an average transaction size of 0.7987 BTC, according to blockchain explorer.
The miner’s reward included the standard base reward of 3.125 BTC plus an additional 0.0042 BTC in transaction fees.
Solo CKPool is a mining service that allows individual miners to participate in Bitcoin mining without operating their own full Bitcoin node, providing an entry point for smaller operations to compete against industrial mining giants.
Though success from individuals is exceedingly rare, as they compete with larger players possessing hundreds of ASICs capable of outcompeting them.
“Of all blockchain networks out there, there is no comparison when it comes to matching Bitcoin network’s decentralization,” Peter Chung, head of research at Presto Labs, told Decrypt. “These events add to that narrative.”
It’s the second successful block discovery by a solo Bitcoin miner this month, following a similar achievement on September 1.
Last month, another solo miner hit the jackpot when they solved block 910,440, earning a 3.137 BTC reward worth approximately $365,000.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is currently 136.04 trillion (136.04 T), near record highs, according to YCharts.
The metric adjusts every 2,016 blocks to keep block times at ~10 minutes, making solo wins “as rare as lottery tickets,” Arjun Vijay, founder of crypto exchange Giottus, told Decrypt.
“The beauty of the Bitcoin proof of work algorithm is that there is no formula and the correct nonce can be found only through a trial and error process,” Vijay said.
But “still there are advantages for large players and pools as they can divide work amongst themselves, reducing effort duplication,” he noted.
For most participants, “it still makes sense to join mining pools to get regular payouts for their efforts instead of betting on such rare outcomes,” he said, adding that “to make Bitcoin more decentralized, we need more pools and not more solo miners.”
Bitcoin is trading at approximately $111,103, up 0.5% in the last 24 hours and 104.3% year-on-year, according to CoinGecko.
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