As a crypto investor with a background in mining operations, I’ve witnessed firsthand the challenges and rewards that come with Bitcoin mining. The recent accomplishment of a solo miner solving block 282 independently is truly remarkable. Although the fourth Bitcoin halving reduced the block reward to 3.125 BTC, which is currently valued at around $200,000, it’s essential to remember that mining a valid block solo is like winning the lottery – an incredibly rare occurrence.


As a Bitcoin analysis expert, I’d put it this way: I discovered an incredible achievement in the Bitcoin mining community. An individual miner successfully mined block 841,286 on their own, which entitled them to a lucrative 3.125 BTC reward.

As a Bitcoin analyst, I’d recapitulate that the fourth reduction in my bitcoin block rewards occurred on the 20th of April, specifically at block number 840,000. This adjustment saw a decrease from 6.25 Bitcoins to 3.125 Bitcoins per block, equivalent to approximately $200,000 in current value.

Bitcoin Miner Solves 282nd Solo Block

April 29 saw Con Kolivas, an individual software engineer and miner from the ckpool solo mining pool, announce on platform X that an unsolicited miner – not a large corporation – had successfully mined Bitcoin’s 282nd solo block, a relatively infrequent occurrence.

Miner 365ughTgK9Q7rXXTM7vubqy1awZ2AZJijP has successfully mined the 282nd block alone, achieving a hash rate of approximately 120 petahashes per second (PH/s) during that particular mining session. This is notably higher than their average weekly hash rate of around 12 PH/s.

— Dr -ck (@ckpooldev) April 28, 2024

At that point, Kolivas observed that this lone miner boasted a noteworthy hash rate of approximately 120 petahashes per second (PH/s). This translated to around 0.12 exahashes per second (EH/s), with an average of about 12 petahashes per week. Remarkably, this miner’s hash rate accounted for almost 0.02% of the entire network’s hash power.

I examined the summary of the latest block solve and pondered over the possibility that this prominent miner had shifted from pooled mining following the halving event. The rationale being, they might no longer be able to cover their electricity expenses in a pooled setup, thereby opting for solo mining as an opportunity to secure a block reward for themselves. Another plausible scenario could be that they were intermittently hashing or even renting significant computing power alone on occasion.

This accomplishment holds great value due to the extreme scarcity of mining a valid block independently, which is akin to hitting the lottery jackpot. Such events are incredibly rare, with merely 282 documented occurrences out of the roughly 841,300 blocks mined since Bitcoin’s inception 14 years ago.

Solo Block Mining Difficulty is Increasing

As a researcher studying the intricacies of cryptocurrency mining, I can tell you that contributing computational resources is essential for adding new blocks to the Bitcoin network. However, with the escalating value of Bitcoin, an increasing number of individuals are joining this endeavor, resulting in heightened competition. This competition manifests as a more complex mathematical problem to be solved (referred to as difficulty), and an elevated hash rate or network horsepower. Consequently, attempting to solve a block independently has become an arduous task due to the intense level of competition.

In March 2023, an individual miner managed to mine a entire block of Bitcoins and obtained the 6.25 BTC reward. Despite this achievement, the Bitcoin market prices were quite low during that period, meaning the reward was worth approximately $150,000 in value.

As a crypto investor, I’d put it this way: I recently took note that a solo miner managed to mine the latest block on April 5, around two weeks before the halving event. This miner brilliantly solved block number 837,814 with an impressive hash rate of 7PH. The reward for this achievement was approximately worth $422,750 in value at that moment in time.

As a crypto investor, I’m always keeping tabs on the latest developments in the blockchain world, and one metric that consistently piques my interest is the network hash rate. According to Bitinfocharts, this figure currently hovers around 618 exa hashes per second (EH/s), a new record high. Over the past year, we’ve seen a staggering increase of over 90% from the previous mark of 325 EH/s reached in April 2021. This latest solo mining achievement is truly remarkable and speaks to the robustness and growth of the crypto ecosystem.

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2024-04-29 16:58