Four Solo Miners Raked in $853K This Week!

This week has been pretty crazy for solo miners. In just the last 7 days, four miners managed to hit blocks across three different solo pools, bringing in a total of around 12.47 BTC, which is roughly $853,000. The little guys are really making a mark. 1. Block 943,411 (April 2) Pool: Solo CK Hashrate: 240 TH/s Reward: 3.07 BTC (~$205,949) 3,961 transactions | 1.4M sats in fees Fee range: 0.00 to 477 sat/vB This was the 312th solo block on CKPool, and the first one in 33 days. Odds: 1 in 28,000 per day 2. Block 943,466 (April 3) Pool: Public Pool (this was their first solo block ever) Devices: NerdOCTAXE (8.2 TH/s), NerdQaxe+ (2.9 TH/s), NerdQaxe++ (7.4 TH/s) Total hashrate: 18.5 TH/s Reward: 3.14 BTC (~$209,597) 2,359 transactions | 2.3M sats in fees Fee range: 1.00 to 448 sat/vB All hardware used was open-source, and there were no pool fees. 3. Block 944,078 (April 7) Pool: Noderunners Mining Pool Device: NerdQaxe++ Reward: 3.13 BTC (~$215,163) 3,927 transactions | 706.4k sats in fees Fee range: 0.13 to 85.0 sat/vB 4. Block 944,306 (April 9) Pool: Solo CK (EU) Device: Antminer S19 (~70 TH/s) Reward: 3.128 BTC (~$222,722) 440 transactions | 299.2k sats in fees Fee range: 1.00 to 20.25 sat/vB This was the 313th solo block on CKPool. Odds: 1 in 100,000 per day (which is like every 300 years) Just for some perspective, the whole Bitcoin network is running at around 1 ZH/s (1,000,000 TH/s). These miners are just a tiny fraction of the total hashrate, yet they're snagging full block rewards in the six-figure range. Solo mining feels like the ultimate Bitcoin gamble. You either hit the jackpot or go home empty-handed. No splitting rewards, no pool drama. It’s just you, your rig, and SHA-256.

Mining Bitcoin via solo is the only lottery that's worth giving your time, yes we can't tell if we will solve a block but it's something that feels good because somehow it's better than buying tickets all the time. You set the miners up and that's your lottery ticket for life, no any daily spending needed, just know at one side that you are trying your luck every blessed day, it's a better way to be a gambler than walking into a casino. Maybe I am talking this way because I like crypto mining normally? Someone who doesn't might see things differently.

I thought devices with a hashrate of 10-20 terahashes hadn't found Bitcoin blocks for a long time, but here we see two blocks a week on such devices. The chances of finding a block with such a device are very low, but I think the overall chances of finding a block are increasing due to the increased use of such devices. Otherwise, I have no other explanation for these events.

That is why solo mining is often compared to a lottery. A miner with only 70 TH/s or even 18.5 TH/s has almost no chance against a network above 1,000,000 TH/s, but if they find a block, they keep the entire reward. The miner with the Antminer S19 reportedly had odds of only about 1 in 100,000 per day, which shows how unusual this week was. Four solo blocks in one week is extremely rare. Most solo miners will never hit a block, which is why many still join pools for smaller but more regular payouts.

I don't think there's any point in mining in normal mode on a 20 terahash pool right now. Although such devices consume very little power, they will have a very long payback period. And since the price of Bitcoin has started to rise, mining difficulty has also increased, so the chances of solo miners will decrease.

I suppose so. 3.1 btc sounds good to me.

No daily spend? What about the electricity to power up the miners?

NerdOCTAXE (8.2 TH/s) will consume 115 kilowatts per month. That's about the price of a few cups of coffee and a loaf of bread. Some miners install this equipment in student dorms, so the electricity is free In my country it's 6 dollars, in England it might cost 30 dollars, but it's hard to call it a big expense.

That's definitely a small expense. Personally I can spare a $10 (based on my country electricity rate) per month trying to chase the lottery. Not sure for how long though, since $100 is still a decent amount of life expense here. I guess I can to get more income to fund that small gamble.

For someone who don't want to keep spending on electricity bill they go all in on a solar setup, specifically for solo mining, so no gig wattage equipment is allowed, people throw away money from time to time, so this can be done and move on with your life, buying 12th solo miner and building a small solar battery is a good lottery investment. There are also places where you can plug it in and move on without taking a ton on electricity bill, like your dome or school hostel, if the watt is within minimal consumption no one will notice, in my country using 600watt from power grid everyday I pay $4 every month for it, I believe it's very cheap.

Lifehack: If you travel frequently on business trips, be sure to take a home Bitcoin miner with you Mining at the hotel is free. Why complicate the system when it's cheaper to play around with it for a year and pay $120? That money could be saved elsewhere, like drinking less coffee.

Pretty crazy that a device that does TRILLIONS of calculations per second is considered to have "almost no chance" of hitting a block.

The Antminer S21 produces approximately 200 terahashes per second, or verifies 200 trillion cryptographic hash variants. The Bitcoin network produces 900 EH/s, or 900,000,000 terahashes, or 900,000,000 trillion cryptographic hash variants per second. It's simple mathematics, nothing more.