A Bitcoin miner recently accomplished the noteworthy achievement of independently processing a block, resulting in a substantial reward estimated at approximately $180,000. This milestone occurred on September 10 during the mining of block 860749, which included a total of 5,935 transactions. The mining pool, known as Solo CK, received a reward of 3.169 Bitcoin , valued at roughly $182,505, as reported by the Bitcoin block explorer Mempool.space.
Despite its name, Solo CK operates as a mining pool that aggregates the computational power of numerous smaller miners, but it uniquely allocates the block rewards solely to the individual miner who successfully solves the block. In this instance, the miner utilized a hashrate of 629 petahashes to complete the block, which represented a mere 0.098% of the total hashrate sustaining the blockchain. As per data from YCharts, the total blockchain hashrate stood at an impressive 644.91 exahashes per second (EH/s) during this period.
The Bitcoin network recently achieved a record high hashrate of 742 EH/s on September 1, marking a substantial increase of 62% year-on-year compared to 395.70 EH/s recorded a year earlier. This escalating hashrate necessitates greater computational resources from miners, leading to increased energy expenses and longer verification times. Such factors contribute to the difficulties faced by solo miners in successfully validating blocks.
Since Bitcoin ’s inception in 2009, solo miners have managed to complete a block just 290 times out of nearly 859,000 blocks mined. Larger mining companies such as Bit Digital, Riot Blockchain, and Marathon Digital tend to dominate block validation due to their extensive hashrate capabilities.
In the past year, the Solo CK pool has solved an additional 14 blocks, accumulating 59.3 Bitcoin , valued at approximately $3.4 million. Notably, on August 30, a miner from this pool processed another block, earning close to $200,000, while another miner celebrated a $210,000 reward after solving block 853,742 on July 25.
