Solo Bitcoin Miner Beats the Odds, Wins $263,000 With a Small Rig

The miner was using the solo.ckpool mining pool, which allows individuals to try their luck at solving blocks without the backing of a major operation.

Con Kolivas, the pool’s developer, wrote in a March 10 post on X, revealing that the miner was running a 480 GH/s Bitaxe machine. In contrast, major mining companies operate rigs that exceed 230,000 GH/s.

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The block, numbered 887212, was confirmed on March 10 at 7:22 PM UTC. The miner earned a total of 3.15 BTC, which included the standard 3.125 BTC block reward plus 0.025 BTC in transaction fees, according to mempool.space.

Given the machine’s low power, the probability of mining a block independently is less than one in a million per day. Kolivas estimated that, on average, a rig of this size would take around 3,500 years to solve a single block.

For context, a slightly stronger 1,200 GH/s Bitaxe Gamma 601, which is about three times faster, costs around $158, based on data from ASIC Miner Value. However, even with this upgrade, profitability remains low.

The machine is projected to generate just $20 annually, with electricity costs eating up around $18, leaving a net gain of less than $3 per year. The chance of it successfully mining a block on any given day is even slimmer—around one in 4.6 million.

On February 10, another solo Bitcoin miner secured a reward of 3.125 BTC, worth over $300,000. How? Read the full story.