Bitcoin solo miners have made significant progress in securing block rewards, despite the competitive nature of the industry, according to Bitcoin CGMiner software engineer Dr. Con Kolivas. The most recent success was recorded on Saturday, October 28, 2023, when a miner using the Solo Ckpool platform secured the bitcoin block reward of block 814,308 with only 11 petahash per second (PH/s) of hash power.
Solo Ckpool, a platform designed for miners with less advanced hardware or lower hash rates, allows miners to keep a substantial 99% of the reward when discovering a block. This feature is a departure from traditional mining pools, which share rewards among all members, and offers more independence to individual miners.
October’s achievement wasn’t an isolated event. Earlier this year, there were several instances of solo mining successes. In August, a miner solved block 803,821 with just 1 PH/s of hashpower, earning a reward of $160,000. Further back in June, a miner using an older Bitmain S9 device with only 17 terahashes per second (TH/s) discovered block 793,607. In another instance, a miner with a substantial 1 exahash per second (EH/s) hashpower mined two blocks in quick succession without large pool support.
These successes underscore the potential for individual miners to compete with the larger mining operations that typically dominate the industry. The appeal of solo mining pools lies in their unpredictability and independence, despite high network difficulty. Mining a bitcoin block isn’t always about having immense computing power; it’s often like winning the lottery, where luck plays a pivotal role in block discovery.
This year, the bitcoin hashrate has been on an upward trajectory, peaking at 456 EH/s earlier this month before dropping slightly to 443 EH/s. Despite network difficulty reaching 62.46T, the average block time remains around 8 minutes and 52 seconds. The increasing mining difficulty and competitive bitcoin mining market has not deterred these solo miners, who continue to secure substantial rewards.
