A remarkable instance in the cryptocurrency world has emerged as a solo Bitcoin miner has successfully mined block 887,212 using a tiny and affordable mining rig. This achievement netted the miner an impressive reward of approximately $263,000. This case reinforces the idea that even small-scale miners can occasionally achieve success against the odds in the competitive landscape of Bitcoin mining.
The miner, utilizing a 480-gigahash per second (GH/s) Bitaxe machine, has become the 297th solo miner to accomplish such a feat within the solo.ckpool Bitcoin mining pool. According to the developer of the pool, Con Kolivas, the odds of a miner operating at that capacity finding a block are less than 1 in a million on a typical day.
To put this into perspective, most large-scale Bitcoin mining operations employ equipment capable of generating over 230,000 GH/s, leaving solo miners to compete with astronomically daunting odds. Kolivas mentioned that a miner of this size would typically require 3,500 years to find a block on average. The bright spot in this story is that the miner managed to snag a total of 3.15 BTC from this block, which includes the standard mining reward of 3.125 BTC alongside an additional 0.025 BTC from transaction fees reported by mempool.space.
For those interested in the mining hardware, a more powerful machine, the Bitaxe Gamma 601, boasts a capacity of 1,200 GH/s and comes at a price of about $158. However, even this robust machine is estimated to generate a mere $20 annually, with power expenses around $18, yielding a net profit of less than $3 for the year. The odds of this machine mining a block solo are calculated at 1 in 4.6 million on any given day or about 1 in 12,700 over a year.
It’s critical to note that solo Bitcoin miners rarely solve blocks using miniature mining rigs. The vast majority of Bitcoin is generated by larger pools, such as Foundry USA, which draws significant hashrate from major public miners like Cipher Mining, Bitfarms, and Hut 8. The largest public entity in this sector, MARA Holdings, primarily operates its dedicated mining pool.
While the financial gains of pocket-sized Bitcoin miners are generally negligible, initiatives to develop micro mining equipment in an open-source manner are gaining traction. This is an effort to combat the perceived exclusivity and obscurity of the Bitcoin mining industry. As increasing numbers of developers like ‘Skot’ work on open-source projects, transparency and accessibility within Bitcoin mining is on the rise, a sentiment echoed by industry experts.
