Once in 300 years? The independent old mining machine "hits the mark in one shot," taking exclusive control of $220k worth of Bitcoin block rewards

Author: Claude, Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Guide: An independent miner with only 70 TH/s hash power successfully mined Bitcoin block 944,306 through CKpool’s solo mode, claiming the full reward of 3.128 BTC (about $222k). This hash power accounts for only 0.000007% of the entire network, meaning on average it would take about 300 years to mine a block.

An independent Bitcoin miner has just achieved a probabilistic milestone.

On April 9th, a miner with approximately 70 TH/s hash power successfully solved Bitcoin block 944,306 via CKpool’s solo mining service, earning the full block reward of 3.128 BTC, which was worth about $222k at the time. Of this, 3.125 BTC was the block subsidy, and 0.003 BTC was transaction fees.

70 TH/s is roughly equivalent to a 2019 Bitmain Antminer S17+, and in the current Bitcoin network with about 1.02 ZH/s (that is, 1 billion TH/s) total hash power, this miner’s contribution is only 0.000007%.

A one-in-ten-thousand chance per day, theoretically once every 300 years

CKpool developer Con Kolivas confirmed this event on X and pointed out that the daily probability of a miner with this level of hash power solving a block is about one in ten thousand, which translates to an expected occurrence roughly once every 300 years.

CKpool is a mining pool service that allows miners to operate in solo mode. Unlike traditional pools that aggregate hash power and distribute rewards proportionally, solo mode means miners bear extremely low chances of success individually, but when they do succeed, they keep the full block reward (minus 2% platform fee). Miners do not need to run a full Bitcoin node themselves; they only need to point their miners to CKpool’s servers to participate.

This is the 313th solo block produced by CKpool since its launch in 2014.

Second solo win within ten days, small miners hit by surprise again

This is not the only recent solo mining anomaly. About a week ago, another CKpool miner mined block 943,411, earning approximately $210k. That miner’s hash power was higher but still small-scale, with a daily success probability of about 1 in 28,000.

Two consecutive solo wins within ten days is a statistically rare clustering event, but it does not change the fundamentals. Currently, Bitcoin mining is dominated by large mining pools. According to public data, Foundry USA, AntPool, and ViaBTC together control over 65% of the network hash rate. Publicly listed mining companies like Bitdeer and MARA Holdings operate with hash rates of 71 EH/s and 61.7 EH/s respectively, which are six orders of magnitude higher than 70 TH/s.

For independent miners, solo mining is essentially a lottery: daily electricity costs are only a few dollars, but the reward can exceed $220k. The expected value is negative, but the asymmetric reward structure still attracts a group of mining enthusiasts to participate continuously.