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Solo Miner Strikes Gold: Wins $347K Bitcoin Block Against the Odds
- A solo Bitcoin miner struck it rich on September 7, successfully mining block #913,593 and earning a reward of 3.13 BTC, worth US$347,980.
- The miner, operating with a hash rate of 200 TH/s on the CKPool platform, had a chance of success of about 1 in 36,000 per day, or about once every 100 years, according to the pool’s administrator.
- This is the second such solo-mined block on CKPool in September and happened as the Bitcoin mining difficulty recently surged by 4.89% to a new all-time high.
On September 7, a lucky solo miner managed to mine Bitcoin block #913,593, earning 3.13 BTC, valued at US$347,980 (AU$516,720).
The block included 593 transactions, generating an additional 0.004 BTC in fees, about US$471 (AU$699). The miner operated at 200 TH/s using the CKPool platform. According to pool administrator Con Kolivas, the probability of success with such capacity was about 1 in 36,000 per day, or roughly once in 100 years.
This marks the second solo-mined block in September, following one confirmed on September 1 on CKPool. In August, another miner solved block #910,440, earning 3.137 BTC valued at about US$365,000 (AU$541,600), as Crypto News Australia reported.
Solo CKPool enables individuals to mine without running a full Bitcoin node, offering smaller operators the chance to compete against industrial-scale miners. But success for solo miners is rare due to competition from farms operating hundreds of ASIC machines.
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Surges
Likewise, this happened at the same time that the Bitcoin mining difficulty surged 4.89% on September 5 to a record 136.04T, marking the fifth consecutive increase, as per Ycharts. Though inter-block intervals remain below the 10-minute target, it’s expected to increase sooner or later.
Related: Kazakhstan Launches State-Backed Bitcoin Reserve to Anchor Digital Asset Strategy
Glassnode data shows the 7-day moving average hash rate exceeded 1 ZH/s at the end of August before adjusting to 973 EH/s at the time of writing.
Bitcoin is currently trading at US$112.2K (AU$170K), a modest 1.1% increase in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. All in all, it’s been a few quiet (or dull) days for Bitcoin and most crypto assets. It seems like prices are stalling as ETF outflows exceeded US$380M during the same period.
Author
José Oramas
José is a journalist and translator with a keen interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
