Solo Bitcoin miners have demonstrated their capacity to secure significant block rewards despite the highly competitive nature of the industry. This achievement was highlighted by Dr. Con Kolivas, a software engineer at Bitcoin CGMiner. Notably, a recent success was recorded on Saturday, October 28, 2023, when a miner utilizing the Solo Ckpool platform secured the Bitcoin block reward for block 814,308 with a hash power of just 11 petahash per second (PH/s).
Solo Ckpool, tailored for miners with less advanced hardware or lower hash rates, enables miners to retain a substantial 99% of the reward upon discovering a block. This is in contrast to traditional mining pools, which distribute rewards among all participants, offering greater independence to individual miners.
This October achievement is not an isolated occurrence. Earlier this year, there were several instances of solo mining triumphs. In August, a miner solved block 803,821 with just 1 PH/s of hash power, earning a $160,000 reward. In June, a miner operating an older Bitmain S9 device with only 17 terahash per second (TH/s) discovered block 793,607. Additionally, a miner with a substantial 1 exahash per second (EH/s) hashpower mined two blocks in quick succession without the support of a large mining pool.
These successes emphasize the potential for individual miners to compete with larger mining operations that often dominate the industry. Solo mining pools offer an enticing combination of unpredictability and independence, despite the high network difficulty. Mining a Bitcoin block often resembles winning a lottery, with luck playing a pivotal role in block discoveries, rather than solely relying on computational power.
This year has witnessed an increase in the Bitcoin hashrate, peaking at 456 EH/s earlier this month before slightly dropping to 443 EH/s. Despite the network difficulty reaching 62.46T, the average block time remains approximately 8 minutes and 52 seconds. The rising mining difficulties and competitive Bitcoin mining landscape have not deterred these solo miners, who continue to secure substantial rewards.
Market observers should closely monitor these developments as they underscore the resilience and adaptability of solo miners in the highly competitive cryptocurrency mining space.