Something that statistically should happen once every 300 years happened on Thursday morning. A lone Bitcoin miner, with only 70 TH/s of power, the equivalent of one old ASIC, solved the block and took the full reward. A pure mathematical anomaly.
Three BTC from one block
One lone miner versus the entire network
“Congratulations to miner bc1q~edvj with only 70 TH for solving the 313th lonely block!” – wrote on the X Con Kolivas platform, developer of CKpool. It is worth noting that 70 TH/s is the performance of a single Bitmain Antminer S17+ device from 2019. The hashrate of the entire Bitcoin network is currently 1.02 ZH/s, so this miner’s hardware is only 0.0000069% of this value.
For comparison: giants like Bitdeer or MARA Holdings operate with powers of 71 EH/s and 61.7 EH/s, respectively. The chance of hitting a block with such a disproportion? 1 to 100,000 per day.
Why do miners still play solo?
CKpool is technically a mining pool, but in practice it serves something else – it allows solo mining without having to build your own infrastructure. Miners work alone, accepting a minimal chance of hitting a block, but keeping the entire reward for themselves (minus a small commission). The risk is high, the infrastructure is simple, the profit (if fate is right) is satisfactory.
This is not a one-off feat. A week earlier, another lone CKpool miner cashed in ~$210,000 for block 943,411, ending the pool’s 33-day dry streak. Last September, someone beat odds of 1 in 100 years and won $350,000, and in December (with odds of 1 in 82 years), a miner took home $285,000. Statistics say “impossible”, and miners say: hold my hard wallet… or probably not 😉
