A Bitcoin miner beat the odds by independently solving network block 841,286, earning him a full reward of 3,125 BTC.
The fourth Bitcoin halving occurred on April 20 at block 840,000, reducing the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, which is currently valued at around $200,000.
Bitcoin Miner Solves 282nd Solo Block
On April 29, Con Kolivas, software engineer and administrator of solo mining pool ckpool, shared on X that a miner (not a large company) had solved the 282nd solo block in Bitcoin history, a rare occurrence.
Kolivas noted that this solo miner had a significant hash rate at the time of around 120PH (peta hashes), equivalent to around 0.12 EH (exa hashes), averaging around 12PH over a week. This hash rate represented approximately 0.02% of the network’s total hash rate.
Kolivas analyzed the block resolution summary and speculated that this large miner had recently left pool mining after the halving, likely because it was no longer covering its electricity costs for the pool mining, looking for a chance to get a solo block. Alternatively, they may have chopped or rented large sums on their own intermittently.
The importance of this achievement comes from the rarity of mining a valid block solo, which is akin to winning the lottery. Such events are extremely rare, with only 282 cases recorded out of approximately 841,300 blocks produced since Bitcoin’s launch 14 years ago.
Solo block mining difficulty increases
Bitcoin mining involves participants contributing computing power to solve and add the next block to the network. However, as the price of Bitcoin has increased, mining has become more popular, leading to increased competitiveness, known as difficulty, and an increase in hash rate, or network power. Therefore, it has become almost impossible to solve a problem alone due to this high competition.
In March 2023, a solo miner managed to get the entire 6.25 BTC reward for solving one block. However, Bitcoin prices were considerably lower during this period, leading to the reward being valued at around $150,000.
The most recent solo block was mined on April 5, just a few weeks before the halving. A solo miner successfully solved block 837,814 with a hash rate of 7PH. Notably, the reward was then valued at approximately $422,750.
According to Bitinfocharts, the network’s average hash rate currently stands at 618 EH/s (exa hashes per second), reaching an all-time high of 728 EH/s on April 23. This is an increase of more than 90% compared to the past. 12 months, demonstrating the exceptional nature of the latest solo mining achievement.
