A lone Bitcoin miner defied the odds by solving a block using a compact, low-cost mining rig, earning a staggering $263,000 reward.
1 in a Million Chance Pays Off
On March 10, a solo Bitcoin miner successfully mined block 887,212 using a 480-gigahash per second (GH/s) Bitaxe machine. The miner was part of the solo.ckpool mining pool, a service designed for individual miners looking to try their luck.
Con Kolivas, the pool’s developer, highlighted the rarity of this achievement, noting that miners with similar setups have less than a one-in-a-million chance of solving a block each day. On average, it would take approximately 3,500 years for such a small rig to mine a block.
For comparison, industrial Bitcoin mining companies operate rigs exceeding 230,000 GH/s, making solo mining success with a small rig almost unheard of.
Tiny Rig, Massive Reward
The miner earned 3.15 BTC, which included the standard 3.125 BTC block reward plus an additional 0.025 BTC in transaction fees, according to mempool.space.
What’s even more impressive is the affordability of the miner’s equipment. A Bitaxe Gamma 601—which is nearly three times more powerful than the one used—costs around $158, per data from ASIC Miner Value. However, its estimated annual net profit is under $3, making it far from a profitable investment for most miners.
The odds of a Bitaxe Gamma 601 mining a block are even slimmer, estimated at 1 in 4.6 million per day or 1 in 12,700 per year.
Solo Mining vs. Major Mining Pools
Bitcoin mining is dominated by major pools like Foundry USA, which sources much of its hashrate from public mining firms such as Cipher Mining, Bitfarms, and Hut 8. The largest publicly traded Bitcoin miner, MARA Holdings, even operates its own mining pool, MARA Pool.
Unlike most commercial Bitcoin mining hardware, which is closed-source, Bitaxe is an open-source miner. Enthusiasts like Skot argue that open-source mining better aligns with Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos.
