Solo miner snags Bitcoin block reward worth $300K

A solo Bitcoin miner hit the jackpot, mining a block for a 3.125 Bitcoin reward worth over $300,000. 

Block 883,181, mined on Feb. 10 by a miner listed as unknown, contained 3,071 transactions and a total reward of ‎3.15 Bitcoin (BTC), according to Bitcoin block explorer Mempool.space.

Bitcoin miner Marshall Long said in a Feb. 10 X post that the miner was using an implementation of the CKPOOL but said they didn’t “seem to be from CKPOOL directly.” He speculated the lucky miner might have used a Bitaxe.

A Bitaxe is a mining device that can be used for solo mining or mining pools where miners combine their computational power to increase the chances of solving the block.

The Bitcoin hashrate is currently at 788.86M, down -0.81% from 795.29M on Feb. 9, but up over 53% from one year ago, data from Bitcoin transaction tracker YCharts shows.

A higher hashrate requires miners to use more computing power, increases energy costs and increases verification and transaction times, making it challenging for solo miners to validate a block successfully.

Related: Bitcoin mining hashrate set to slow down — Here’s why

It comes as the crypto markets continue to recover after a temporary dip when US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on aluminum and steel in the latest salvo of an escalating US trade war. 

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