How did a lone Bitcoin miner beat 1 in 10 million odds to discover a block value $347,000? And what does it reveal about solo mining in 2025?
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- A Reddit consumer claimed to have independently mined Bitcoin block 920440 utilizing an Umbrel Mini and earned roughly $347,000 in rewards and costs.
- Blockchain information supported this declare, exhibiting no hint of the proprietary Coinbase tag and enormous mining swimming pools being concerned.
- At present community ranges of greater than 1 zettahash per second, the chance {that a} single miner will discover a block is roughly 1 in 10 million.
- Industrial-scale swimming pools at the moment management about 75-85% of world manufacturing, making standalone mining in 2025 extra of an experiment than a revenue supply.
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Solo miner claims to have gained Bitcoin in uncommon instances
A latest submit on Reddit’s r/Bitcoin group caught the eye of miners all over the world. One consumer claimed to have mined a Bitcoin block fully on his personal with none help from a big mining pool.
This block was numbered 920440 and included a typical reward of three.125 Bitcoin (BTC) plus transaction charges, which was equal to roughly $347,000 on the time.
Mining Bitcoin blocks includes fixing cryptographic puzzles that require huge quantities of computing energy. Every miner repeatedly exams a random quantity, referred to as a nonce, till it generates a hash that meets the community’s goal issue.
The problem degree is routinely adjusted to make sure that a brand new block is found roughly each 10 minutes, whatever the variety of competing miners. Solo miners work independently and preserve each danger and full reward, making this course of extremely unpredictable.
Presently, massive mining swimming pools dominate the community. A small house miner operating just a few machines will contribute only a few terahashes and the chances of discovering a block are as little as 1 in 200 million.
Nonetheless, it is not solely not possible. CKPool, a platform that enables impartial miners to work alone with out sharing rewards, has recorded some uncommon wins over the previous decade.
A Reddit consumer stated he was utilizing an Umbrel Mini gadget for mining and was surprised to see a “block discovered” message seem on the display. Neighborhood members flooded the thread with congratulations, however some urged it to be verified with blockchain information earlier than celebrating.
Blockchain information matches Reddit’s claims
Each Bitcoin block is publicly obtainable, with precise particulars such because the time it was mined, the entity doing the mining, the problem degree, and the entire reward earned. Once we investigated block 920440, we discovered that its traits carefully matched the accounts of Reddit customers.
This block was mined on October twenty third at 19:32 UTC and contained a brief textual content notice referred to as the Coinbase tag that reads “Public Pool on Umbrel.”
On-chain information for block 920440 | Supply: Bitaps
This tag, inserted by the miner’s software program, recognized the setup answerable for producing the block and matched the Reddit consumer’s declare that it mined by way of a public pool on the Umbrel Mini gadget.
No main industrial pool makes use of that tag. Blocks mined by main operators comparable to Foundry USA, F2Pool, and AntPool can have their names clearly displayed inside Coinbase messages.
The shortage of those names and the presence of customized tags means that this block was truly mined by a person slightly than a pool.
Uncooked community information exhibits how uncommon that occasion was. The block issue was roughly 2.07 trillion, whereas the entire community issue remained near 146 trillion.
At that degree, a house miner producing 1 terahash per second must mine for lots of of tens of millions of years on common earlier than discovering a block.
Nonetheless, possibilities can yield unbelievable outcomes. Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work mechanism ensures that contributors, regardless of how small, have a measurable probability of success.
There was nothing mistaken with the block itself. This included over 2,100 transactions, roughly 89% of which used SegWit, which is in step with regular community habits.
Taken collectively, all technical indicators level to at least one conclusion. It seems that a miner operating a solo Umbrel-based setup did certainly mine block 920440, defying astronomical odds.
Why solo mining is nearly not possible
Mining Bitcoin blocks could sound like a degree recreation, however the scale at which it’s being executed as we speak tells a totally totally different story. All miners within the community try to resolve the identical cryptographic puzzle, however their instruments, prices, and possibilities of success range broadly.
House miners normally begin small. A setup could embrace one or two machines referred to as ASICs, quick for Software-Particular Built-in Circuits.
The ASIC is constructed to carry out the only activity of fixing Bitcoin’s proof-of-work equation. Every ASIC can carry out trillions of calculations per second, however even that degree of energy is tiny in comparison with the worldwide community.
As of October twenty seventh, the complete Bitcoin community is working at roughly 1.035 zettahashes per second. Which means we’re performing greater than 1 sextillion (10²¹) calculations each second.
Bitcoin Hash Price Chart |Supply: Coinwarz
In line with one calculation, if the community stays at its present degree and runs a high ASIC producing 234 terahashes per second, the chance of discovering a block inside a 10-minute window is roughly 0.0000222%, or 2.2 in 10 million.
As a result of every ASIC consumes massive quantities of power and frequently emits warmth, miners make investments closely in cooling programs to forestall {hardware} harm and preserve effectivity.
To offset these prices, miners favor areas the place renewable or surplus power is out there and electrical energy costs are very low, comparable to components of Texas, Kazakhstan, and Iceland.
Carriers in these areas purchase {hardware} in bulk, typically 1000’s of models at a time, safe long-term energy contracts, and use real-time monitoring programs to handle energy masses and preserve efficiency stability.
As their operations increase, many massive miners select to mix their computing energy by way of mining swimming pools, the place 1000’s of contributors contribute assets and obtain small however regular funds, as a substitute of ready for uncommon full-block rewards.
In 2025, virtually the complete hashrate of the community shall be concentrated in just a few massive swimming pools comparable to Foundry USA, Antpool, F2Pool, and ViaBTC.
Collectively, these high 5 account for about 75-85% of world block technology at any given time, with smaller or unidentified swimming pools dealing with the remainder, in line with information from public trackers.
The function of house miners is statistically negligible. In Bitcoin’s historical past, just a few hundred solo-mined blocks have been recorded, exhibiting how extraordinarily uncommon it’s for particular person miners to independently discover blocks.
Should you pay commonplace residential charges, house mining is never worthwhile until somebody will get very fortunate and discovers a block.
Merely put, practically each block on as we speak’s networks is generated by large-scale skilled operations, however impartial works just like the Umbrel Mini case stay uncommon exceptions.
Anybody contemplating house mining in 2025 ought to deal with it as a sensible experiment slightly than an funding. Whereas this offers perception into how Bitcoin stays safe and decentralized, it isn’t a dependable path to earnings.
