Lone bitcoin miner beats the odds to win full $219,000 block reward

A solo bitcoin miner beat the odds to solve a block and take home the full subsidy and transaction fee reward late Sunday.

The miner collected 3.433 BTC -2.24% ($218,544) for mining block 841,286, using solo bitcoin-mining software from CKpool, according to the Bitcoin explorer Mempool . This comprised 3.125 BTC in block subsidy rewards ($198,937) and 0.308 BTC ($19,607) in transaction fees.

"Congratulations to miner 365ughTgK9Q7rXXTM7vubqy1awZ2AZJijP for solving the 282nd solo block solved at solo.ckpool.org with a large ~120PH at the time (12PH average over a week)," CKpool developer Con Kolivas posted on X.

At a hash rate of around 120 PH/s compared to the total Bitcoin network of around 638 EH/s, the odds of the solo miner solving the block were about 0.02% — or more than 1 in 5,000. (Bitcoin's hash rate measures the total computational power dedicated to the network by miners.)

As Kolivas points out, it’s not the first time a solo miner has picked up the entirety of the block rewards, nor one of the luckiest. For example, a solo Bitcoin miner with a hash rate of just 126 TH/s beat odds of 1 in 1.3 million to mine a block in 2022 — picking up around $260,000 in rewards. Most recently, a solo miner with 7 PH/s earned $422,875 on April 5 before the halving. Still, it remains a relatively rare event.

"From the block solve summary, one can postulate that this large miner either recently switched from pooled mining post-halving (presumably for no longer recouping their electricity costs) for a chance at a solo block, or has been intermittently hashing/renting large amounts solo," Kolivas added.

Bitcoin’s fourth halving event took place on April 20 at block height 840,000 and reduced miners’ block subsidy rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.