A solo Bitcoin miner has won a major jackpot by spending just $75 on rented computing power to discover a block worth approximately $200,000. The miner used a minimum rental of 1 Petahash per second from Braiins, achieving a feat statistically expected to occur only once every 1.1 million blocks, or roughly 21 years.
A Bitcoin miner that rented $75 of mining power defied the odds by finding a solo block reward, earning more than 3.1 BTC worth around $200,000 early Tuesday. The individual rented the minimum 1 Petahash per second of hash power via the Braiins hash power marketplace.
Based on the current hash rate, at that mining capacity, a success would only occur approximately every 1 out of 1.1 million blocks, or about 21 years’ worth of mining, according to estimates from SoloChance.com. Solo mining wins are rare, as most Bitcoin blocks are found by large mining pools that dedicate massive computational power.
The act has been likened by experts to “playing the lottery,” but has provided a handful of jackpot winners recently. In January, two solo Bitcoin miners pulled in more than 3.1 BTC in respective rewards worth around $300,000 at the time.
The feats are even more impressive considering the network’s total computational power is above 1.1 Zettahash per second on average per day. At this time last year, the network’s overall computational power was around 730 Exahash per second, which is about 61% of its current capacity.
A portion of that decline can be attributed to pools and miners shifting their attention to growing demand for AI compute. For example, publicly traded Bitcoin miners like Bitfarms are completely winding down their mining operations, while others like Riot Platforms are being urged by investors to capitalize on opportunities in AI.
