A solo Bitcoin miner achieved a rare feat on Sunday by successfully mining block 910,440 and securing a reward of 3.137 BTC, valued at approximately $371,000 at the time.
The miner, who participated via the Solo CK pool, received the standard 3.125 BTC block subsidy plus about 0.012 BTC in transaction fees collected from 4,913 transactions, totaling $1,455 in fees.
Solo mining remains a high-stakes lottery
Despite the dominance of large-scale mining operations on the Bitcoin network, smaller miners using efficient hardware can still occasionally secure full block rewards.
Samuel Li, chief technology officer at ASICKey, emphasized that while advanced mining equipment has improved efficiency, the odds are still daunting. Li explained:
“Solo mining is still mostly a lottery, unless you control tens of PH/s, which is realistically the bare minimum for having a measurable statistical shot at success within a reasonable time frame.”
According to Li, a miner operating just one petahash (PH/s) of hashpower has a 1 in 650,000 chance of solving a block every 10 minutes.
Recent solo miner successes
This year has seen several solo miners defy the odds and claim significant rewards.
Notable wins include a solo block mined in February and another $350,000 reward secured on July 4.
On July 27, a solo miner also bagged $373,000 by mining a block independently.
Difficulty climbs for all miners
The Bitcoin network’s mining difficulty is now near all-time highs at 129 trillion, making consistent solo wins even less likely.
The upward trend in network hashrate and the recent reduction in block subsidy following the halving have put additional pressure on both solo and professional miners.
Many large mining firms are now diversifying into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing to sustain profitability as competition intensifies.
