FameEX Hot Topics | Solo Bitcoin Miner Earns $330K Block Reward Despite Record Difficulty

A solo Bitcoin miner has remarkably secured a $330,000 block reward, even as the network’s mining difficulty surged to a record high of 126.98 trillion. According to mempool.space, the miner confirmed block 899,826 at 3:48 am UTC on June 5, containing 3,680 transactions. Operating under the Solo CK mining pool, the miner earned the standard 3.125 BTC block subsidy plus 0.026 BTC in transaction fees, totaling approximately $330,000.

Transaction fees in the block averaged about $0.29, with a median fee rate of around 2 satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB), indicating low congestion on the network at the time. Con Kolivas, a software engineer and administrator of the Solo CKPool, explained on X that the miner had recently increased their hashrate to an impressive 259 petahashes per second (PH/s), a substantial figure for a solo participant. Notably, this hashrate appeared to come from a single worker, suggesting it was likely a short-term rental from a cloud provider or hashrate marketplace.

Kolivas added that the miner's account typically operated with a much lower hashrate, reinforcing the theory that the large hashrate was temporarily rented to take a strategic shot at mining a full block. This tactic appears to have paid off, albeit in an increasingly competitive environment. As of June 1, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty had reached its highest-ever level, underscoring the fierce competition and improving security across the network.

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks to reflect the current network hashrate, which measures the total computing power securing the blockchain. At these elevated difficulty levels, the odds of a solo miner finding a block are extremely low, making such successful attempts rare and noteworthy. As difficulty continues to climb, these solo victories are expected to become even less frequent.

Despite the odds, 2025 has seen a surprising number of solo mining successes. On March 10, a solo miner using a modest setup earned 3.15 BTC (worth $263,000 at the time) after solving block 887,212. Similarly, on February 10, another solo miner earned over $300,000 for solving block 883,181, which contained 3,071 transactions. These events continue to highlight the unpredictable but rewarding nature of Bitcoin solo mining.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this section is for reference only and does not represent any investment advice or the official views of FameEX.