In a rare and remarkable event in the Bitcoin mining world, an independent miner successfully mined an entire Bitcoin block using approximately $75 worth of rented computing power, earning the full subsidy of 3.125 BTC. The mining firm “Brians” confirmed the achievement on social media, which was also verified by on-chain data. The miner successfully mined Bitcoin block number 938092 and received a reward of about 3.125 BTC, equivalent to nearly $200,000 at current prices. To achieve this, the miner rented roughly 1 petahash per second of hashrate at a total cost of approximately 75 dollars. This effort was organized through the “CKPool” platform, designed to enable solo miners to receive full block rewards by temporarily renting hashrate without heavy capital investment. Such solo block rewards have become increasingly rare due to the rising total network computing power and mining difficulty, compounded by large mining pools that combine multiple miners’ hashrate to improve block-finding chances. Only a few solo miners have found blocks throughout the year, a tiny fraction compared to the thousands of blocks produced daily. This event occurred amid recent fluctuations in Bitcoin mining difficulty, which saw a temporary hashrate drop due to adverse weather conditions followed by an approximate 15 percent increase in difficulty. These adjustments help maintain the network’s average block time near 10 minutes. While miners with large hashrate typically dominate, this case demonstrates that success is still possible with rented hashrate, especially when temporary network changes create opportunities for smaller miners.
Source: bitcoinmagazine
