Bitcoin miners overcame the odds by independently solving network block 841,286 and were able to earn the full reward of 3.125 BTC.
The fourth Bitcoin halving took place on April 20th with block 840,000, and the block reward was reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, currently worth approximately $200,000.
Bitcoin miner solves 282nd solo block
On April 29th, Kon Kolivas, a software engineer and administrator of the solo mining pool ckpool, announced on Shared.
Kolibas pointed out that the solo miner had a significant hash rate at the time of about 120PH (PetaHash), which is equivalent to about 0.12 EH (ExaHash), with a weekly average of about 12PH. This hash rate was approximately 0.02% of the network's overall hash rate.
Colivas analyzed Blocksolve's overview and found that the large-scale miner has recently moved away from post-halving pool mining in search of solo block opportunities, perhaps because it can no longer cover the electricity costs of pool mining. I guessed it wasn't. Or they may have been doing a lot of hashing or renting on their own intermittently.
The significance of this achievement comes from the rarity of mining a valid block solo, which is like winning the lottery. Such events are extremely rare, with only 282 recorded out of approximately 841,300 blocks generated since Bitcoin's launch 14 years ago.
Solo block mining difficulty is increasing
Mining Bitcoin involves participants contributing computing power to solve the next block and add it to the network. However, as the price of Bitcoin rose, mining became more popular, leading to increased competitiveness, known as difficulty, and an increase in hash rate, or network horsepower. As a result, this increased competition has made it nearly impossible to solve the block alone.
In March 2023, one miner was able to secure the entire reward of 6.25 BTC by solving a block. However, the price of Bitcoin fell significantly during that period, resulting in the reward being worth approximately $150,000.
The most recent solo block was mined on April 5th, just a few weeks before the halving. A single miner successfully solved block 837,814 with a hash rate of 7PH. Notably, that compensation was worth approximately $422,750 at the time.
According to Bitinfocharts, the network's average hash rate is currently 618 EH/s (ExaHashes/Second), reaching an all-time high of 728 EH/s on April 23rd. This is an increase of over 90% compared to the past. 12 months. It shows the extraordinary nature of the latest solo mining achievements.
