Solo Bitcoin Miner Hits the Jackpot, Scoring $266K Reward – Decrypt

A solo Bitcoin miner hit the jackpot early Friday, mining a block and not using a pool of supporting miners and bagging a $266,000 reward within the course of. However simply how reasonable is such a feat?

On Friday, an unknown miner processed Bitcoin block 888,737. The block contained 2,327 transactions and the miner acquired a payout of three.125 BTC, in addition to 0.032 BTC in charges. 

At as we speak’s Bitcoin value of $84,257 per coin, that is a greater than $266,000 payday.

Bitcoin miners work to course of blocks on the cryptocurrency’s community. Blocks are stuffed with transaction knowledge and are a part of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Miners are given newly minted cash: a 3.125 BTC mounted reward, together with the transaction charges paid by these utilizing the cost system throughout that individual block window. 

Because the community has grown, mining operations have change into extra energy-intensive, and are sometimes now industrial-sized setups consisting of warehouses stuffed with machines. 

However often, a solo miner can rating massive utilizing a house pastime machine. On this case, in line with blockchain knowledge, the miner was utilizing a DIY FutureBit Apollo machine. 

Nonetheless, consultants instructed Decrypt that issues won’t be so simple as they sound: “solo mining,” per blockchain jargon, technically refers to any miner that is not in a mining pool. Swimming pools are teams of crypto miners that share their sources in order that they’ve a greater probability of processing a transaction. However in addition they then share the reward.

“The time period ‘solo miner’ is a extremely broad time period,” pseudonymous Bitcoin miner Econoalchemist instructed Decrypt. “It might simply be one dude in his condominium, or a warehouse stuffed with high-powered miners.”

In the end, which means that a “solo miner” might have a room stuffed with pastime miners all switched on and dealing to safe a transaction. Such an operation would not essentially be as straightforward—or low cost—to arrange, although it might give the miner a greater shot at securing a block win.

Nonetheless, with solo miners securing quite a few block wins in latest months, Friday’s information might spur extra Bitcoiners to attempt to have a go at house mining.

Edited by Andrew Hayward