Solo Bitcoin miner wins $266K reward despite record-high mining difficulty of 112 trillion.

Bitcoin's hashrate reaches 817.8 EH/s, a 50% increase from last year, intensifying competition.

A solo Bitcoin miner has won a full block reward despite record-high mining difficulty and an impressive hashrate.

The miner, who appears to be using a FutureBit Apollo setup, solved block 888,737 on March 21. The block included 2,327 transactions and earned the miner 3.125 BTC—currently valued at about $266,000—plus an extra 0.032 BTC in transaction fees.

At the time of the block’s solution, Bitcoin’s hashrate stood at 817.8 exahashes per second (EH/s), and its difficulty was 112 trillion.

This is an interesting case as the majority of miners use a batch of ASIC machines from manufacturers such as Bitmain, Canaan, and WhatsMiner. However, this miner was last seen using a FutureBit Apollo setup, which is more typically used by home miners rather than large-scale mining firms.

This makes the win even more surprising, considering that the last time a solo miner won a block was in December 2022, and at the time, it was an occurrence that hadn’t happened in “nearly two years.”

Indeed, solo miners are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with large-scale mining pools, who deploy an enormous amount of computing power to solve blocks and earn rewards.

As the network’s hashrate continues to grow—reaching an all-time high in recent days—the competition among miners is likely to become even more fierce.

According to estimates, at current hashrate levels and with the small FutureBit Apollo setup, the miner would have needed on average about 5,696 years to mine one block.

This is a testament to the incredible odds that solo miners face in today’s mining landscape. It is an amazing feat that showcases the dedication and perseverance of small-scale miners.