Lone Bitcoin Miners Thrive Against the Odds as Block Rewards Flow In

Individual miners have been overcoming the challenges, successfully obtaining complete Bitcoin block rewards even as the network’s hashrate approaches historical peaks.

At the time of writing, the Bitcoin (BTC) network’s hashrate is around 902 exahashes per second (EH/s), just shy of its all-time high, as noted by Blockchain.com. This number indicates increasing competition and heightened difficulty, implying that solo miners confront significant challenges in securing a block.

Nonetheless, last week, an individual miner surpassed these challenges, achieving block 907,283 through the Solo CK pool and receiving the complete 3.125 BTC reward, valued at over $372,000 at that time. The miner also garnered an additional $3,436 in transaction fees.

This success was not an outlier. Earlier in July, another miner utilizing merely 2.3 petahashes of capability secured a full block reward, while comparable successes were documented in June, March, and previously in February.

“We are observing individual miners acquiring blocks not purely due to chance, but as a result of utilizing potent, efficient equipment,” stated Samuel Li, chief technology officer of ASICKey, in an interview with Cointelegraph. He mentioned that contemporary miners are designed to provide “significant hashrate” without the substantial energy consumption associated with conventional setups.

Related: Solo Bitcoin miner achieves $373,000 block reward

Focusing on Efficiency

For solo miners, efficiency is paramount, Li explained. “Consider our KEYMINER A1—it consumes just 650 watts yet delivers 1,100 TH/s on Bitcoin, yielding monthly profits around $1,200. For those branching out into altcoins, it could generate up to $3,800 monthly mining Dash,” he pointed out.

The KEYMINER A1 is part of ASICKey’s hardware lineup launched last November, which also features the KEYMINER X and KEYMINER PRO.

As per the company’s information, the KEYMINER X produces 2,300 terahash per second (TH/s) at 1,300 watts, while the PRO variant yields up to 5,800 TH/s at 2,800 watts. Under the current market conditions, the firm predicts monthly earnings reaching up to $6,300 for the PRO.

However, despite advancements in application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) efficiency, the “fundamental probabilities [for solo miners to succeed] haven’t changed significantly,” Li remarked.

“Solo mining remains largely a gamble, unless one controls tens of PH/s, which realistically is the minimum required to have a noticeable statistical chance at success within a reasonable period,” he elaborated.

Li clarified that given today’s Bitcoin network hashrate, a miner possessing one petahash (PH/s) of hashpower has about a 1 in 650,000 likelihood of solving a block every 10 minutes. One petahash (PH/s) translates to 1,000 terahashes (TH/s).

Related: Tether prepares to open-source Bitcoin mining OS; CEO indicates ‘no requirement’ for third-party vendors

Reasons for Individual Mining

Li confirmed there has been a “slight resurgence” of interest in solo mining, but for various reasons. “Some miners are opting for it not for guaranteed income, but for the chance of a substantial reward—6.25 BTC plus fees—which can be transformative if secured,” he noted.

While financial incentives are significant, some are motivated by ideological beliefs, appreciating network decentralization and the capacity to operate independently from centralized mining pools.

Based on data from Hashrate Index, the US-based mining pool Foundry USA continues to lead Bitcoin mining, commanding 29.3% of the total hashrate. AntPool follows with 16.2%, while ViaBTC and F2Pool hold 12.0% and 11.6%, respectively.

If a single pool (or a few pools collaborating) commands over 50% of the hashrate, they could theoretically initiate a 51% attack, which would enable them to double-spend coins. While rare and expensive, such an incident could undermine trust in the network.