A solo Bitcoin miner utilizing an affordable, compact crypto mining rig has successfully solved a block on the blockchain, earning a substantial reward of $263,000.
This miner became the 297th solo contributor to successfully mine a Bitcoin block from the solo.ckpool Bitcoin mining pool, as noted by the developer on March 10 in a post on X.
The miner operated with a Bitaxe machine capable of 480 gigahash per second (GH/s). For context, many large-scale crypto-mining operations utilize machines with capabilities exceeding 230,000 GH/s.
“A miner of this capacity has less than a 1 in a million probability of uncovering a block in a day’s time, which translates to an average of 3,500 years needed to find a block,” the developer remarked.
The miner collected a total of 3.15 BTC for successfully solving block 887,212, which was timestamped on March 10 at 7:22 PM UTC. This includes the standard 3.125 Bitcoin mining reward plus an additional 0.025 Bitcoin from transaction fees, as indicated by mempool.space data.
Image Source: Developer Post
A more powerful Bitaxe Gamma 601 machine, which operates at 1,200 gigahash, is priced at approximately $158, according to cryptocurrency miner marketplace ASIC Miner Value.
This source estimates that the Bitaxe Gamma 601 would generate a bit more than $20 per year while consuming around $18 worth of electricity, resulting in a minimal yearly profit of under $3.
The Bitaxe Gamma 601 is about the size of a smartphone. Image Source: ASIC Miner Value
It is reported that the likelihood of the Bitaxe Gamma 601 successfully mining a block solo on any given day is one in 4.6 million, or one in 12,700 over the course of a year.
Related: Solo miner reaps Bitcoin block reward valued at $300K
It is uncommon for solo Bitcoin miners to successfully solve blocks, especially those using smaller mining rigs.
The majority of Bitcoin is extracted from large pools like Foundry USA, which sources a significant portion of its hashrate from public Bitcoin miners such as Cipher Mining, Bitfarms, and Hut 8.
The largest publicly-traded Bitcoin mining enterprise by market capitalization and hashrate, MARA Holdings, operates its own mining pool, MARA Pool.
While compact Bitcoin mining solutions tend to lack profitability, there’s a push towards developing open-source micro miners to counteract the “secrecy and exclusivity” prevalent in the Bitcoin mining sector, shared “Skot,” a builder of Bitaxe miners, in a September 2023 discussion.
Many Bitcoin miners, like those manufactured by Bitmain, are closed-source, which contradicts Bitcoin’s fundamental principles, Skot argued.
“The rise of these open-source projects aims to highlight this frequently murky field, fostering transparency and making it more accessible to the public.”
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