Solo bitcoin miner beats odds to mine BTC despite record high difficulty

On June 9, at block height 793,607, an individual mining Bitcoin (BTC) on their own successfully mined a block using the services of the mining provider solo.ckpool.

The accomplishment involved the solo miner receiving the block reward of 6.25 BTC, despite facing significant odds. Given the current conditions and a hash rate exceeding 390 EH/s as of June 11, it is highly unusual for a solo miner with a relatively low hash rate to successfully mine a Bitcoin block.

Observers have identified the miner as “151XTfHBfaDqoNWGGeYobNX2YzFFWuB5YD,” who likely operated a single S9 miner with a hash rate of 17 TH/s. The S9 is an outdated Bitcoin mining rig manufactured by Bitmain in 2016, primarily available in the secondary market. Under optimal conditions, it delivers a hash rate of 13.5 TH/s but is also notorious for its high energy consumption.

The true identity of the solo miner remains undisclosed, as solo.ckpool maintains confidentiality. Only the miner’s Bitcoin address is public, while other details remain anonymous.

Typically, a miner using this equipment would expect to solve a block, on average, once every 450 years.

Considering the current difficulty of the Bitcoin network, which stands at 51T, the probability of success is 1 in 5,500. Despite the odds, the extremely low hash rate directed towards solo.ckpool proved sufficient to mine the mining pool’s 275th block.

Solo.ckpool describes itself not as a mining pool but as a service provider that enables solo Bitcoin miners to continue their operations since miners “cannot mine directly to a bitcoin core node.”

In this arrangement, a regular solo miner avoids the overheads associated with running a full Bitcoin node, which would require additional storage space and bandwidth to operate efficiently. The solo.ckpool infrastructure caters to miners with outdated or inefficient mining equipment that would otherwise have minimal chances of earning rewards through regular mining, treating their activity as a lottery.

Additionally, the service serves as a backup for miners who either lack a solo setup or wish to avoid the associated overheads. If a solo miner successfully mines a Bitcoin block, they receive 98% of the block rewards and associated transaction fees.

The current Bitcoin difficulty, which measures the mining difficulty of a Bitcoin block, stands at 51T. Meanwhile, the hash rate decreased from 424 EH/s to 390 EH/s on June 11. A decline in hash rate could potentially lead to a decrease in mining difficulty.

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