Hundreds of Dollars Turned into $260,000, Independent Miners Frequently "Winning Big," Is Mining Becoming Popular Again?
Original Article Title: Solo Bitcoin Miners Are Winning More Blocks Lately—What Gives?
Original Article Author: Mat Di Salvo, Decrypt
Original Article Translation: Lila, BlockBeats
Last week, another solo Bitcoin miner successfully mined a block and received a reward of 3.125 bitcoins (including transaction fees), worth nearly $260,000. This is just one of several recent occurrences where independent miners have "won" big.
So, was this miner merely lucky? Is solo mining becoming more common? Can the average person with a basic mining rig challenge large mining pools with limited hash power successfully?
The answers vary. While recent instances of "solo miners" (referring to individual enthusiasts or small low-profile mining groups) successfully mining blocks have indeed increased, the growth rate is limited and unlikely to skyrocket.
Scott Norris, CEO of the independent mining company Optiminer, states that solo mining still feels like "buying a lottery ticket."
According to data, in 2022, the number of blocks successfully mined through Solo CKPool (a service platform that allows anonymous users to mine without running a full node) was 7 times; in 2023, it increased to 12 times; and by 2024, this number reached 16 times.
It is worth noting that Solo CKPool is not a traditional mining pool. Despite the name including "Pool," it merely provides an entry point. Once miners find a block, they can take away most of the reward themselves. However, this does not mean that blocks mined through Solo CKPool are from a single person in their bedroom using very low hash power. There is a significant misconception about this on social media, with some even promoting this view without supporting data.
The current mining pool industry is still dominated by a few giants, such as Foundry, AntPool, and F2Pool. Miners usually join these large pools, share hash power, and receive rewards proportionally. Miners accessing Solo CKPool can keep almost all of the rewards for themselves.
As the Bitcoin network continues to grow, the search for the computational power and resources required to find a block has also increased. As a result, most mining activities are now industrialized operations run by publicly traded companies on a global scale. Some Bitcoin core supporters believe this is detrimental to Bitcoin's decentralization.
Today, some hobbyist mining devices priced between $200 and $500, such as Bitaxe and FutureBit Apollo, are gaining popularity among Bitcoin maximalists. In January this year, a FutureBit Apollo successfully mined a block—though this was done under the premise of a nonprofit organization donating hash power to it. An anonymous miner, Econoalchemist, wrote on X at the time that the organization's goal was to "break the proprietary mining empire, making Bitcoin and free tech accessible to all."
Although the probability of success is extremely low, perhaps it is the increasing number of "amateur miners" that has significantly boosted the success rate of individual mining. Econoalchemist pointed out that in recent years, the trend of successful independent miners has become more apparent. "Every once in a while (and it's becoming more and more frequent), a small device like Bitaxe quietly running in a corner of a home suddenly hits a block," he said.
Norris from Optiminer added that it may also be the case that some large institutions, without connecting to large mining pools, have mined a block with their own hash power—appearing "independent" in form, but not in reality.
Even Solo Satoshi, a company based in Houston, Texas, selling mining devices like Bitaxe Gamma, wrote on its website that using a $180 mining device with a hash rate of 1.2 TH/s, the probability of mining a block per day is only 0.00068390%.
However, its founder, Matt Howard, stated that engaging in solo mining is not necessarily for profit. "The main goal is to promote decentralization. Finding a block and earning Bitcoin is just a bonus," he said. "For Bitcoin maximalists, mining must be decentralized."
Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:
Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats
Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App
Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia
