On August 18, a solo miner managed to solve block 803,821, securing a remarkable block reward of 6.25 Bitcoin worth $160,000. This is a very rare occurrence as lone miners have a lower chance of mining a block due to the increase in mining difficulty and this solo miner became the 277th solo miner in bitcoin history to achieve this .
Solo Bitcoin Miner makes history
The solo miner was able to achieve this remarkable feat with the help of the Solo CKpool mining service. The miner identified with the tag bc1q2za4ejga366sn288273pty8trasn5zs4y9hqg6 was using an S17 Bitcoin Miner with a hash power of about 1 PetaHash, which is much less than most BTC mining entities, as speculated by Con Kolivas, the administrator of Solo CKpool.
Congratulations to miner bc1q2za4ejga366sn288273pty8trasn5zs4y9hqg6 with ~1PH hashrate on solving the 277th solo block on https://t.co/UWgBvLkDqc! A miner of this size would solve a block solo on average only once every 7 years at the current diffhttps://t.co/cNgm1KUqvw
— Dr Con Kolivas (@ckpooldev) August 19, 2023
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this development is that the miner achieved this remarkable reward when the mining difficulty reached almost an all-time high of 52.39.
Normally mining Bitcoin with just 1 PetaHash seems impossible compared to other BTC solo miners who were able to do this in the past and had hash rate capability in exa hashes.
It is almost impossible for a solo miner to solve an entire block on his own, due to the increased popularity of BTC mining and the continued rise in network hash rate and powerful mining equipment.
BTC miners must input computing power to solve for the next Bitcoin block and add it to the network, creating a valid block hash while using the computing power of multiple mining rigs.
However, since the miner used the Solo CKpool, miners with outdated or inefficient equipment can pool their mining power, increasing their chances of solving a block, which is what happened here. In their case, this miner was able to keep 98% of the reward.
BTC price puts reward for a single block over $160,000 | Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview.com
The miner now joins two other solo miners who were able to achieve this impressive feat in March and June this year using a Solo CKpool and it is the third time this has happened so far in 2023.
Increase in hashrate causes increase in mining difficulty
In recent months, the Bitcoin hashrate has risen rapidly, which finally reached an all-time high in July. In response, the mining difficulty increased rapidly, reaching its own ATH in the same month.
On July 8, Bitcoin mining hashrate was 538.05 EH/s and the difficulty rose to 53.9112T a few days later on July 12. about 3% to 52.39T.
Mining difficulty rises to new ATH | Source: CoinWarz
Nevertheless, both the hashrate and difficulty of Bitcoin are significantly higher compared to the beginning of 2023, making the solo miner’s performance even more impressive. As hashrate and difficulty continue to rise, such events are expected to be less as miners with large hashrates dominate the market.
In the end, the winner is the Bitcoin network that gets stronger for it with the increased hashrate. It also benefits BTC investors as an increase in the hash rate suggests there is more interest in the digital asset and could lead to higher prices for the cryptocurrency.
Featured image of Unsplash, chart from Tradingview.com
