A solo Bitcoin miner notched a rare win by validating an entire Bitcoin block, securing a huge payday using a hobby-level mining operation and on-demand hashrate.
The miner earned the 3.125 Bitcoin (BTC) block reward, worth about $200,000 at current prices, after successfully mining block 938092, according to blockchain data and a post from Bitcoin mining firm Braiins.
Braiins said the miner relied on on-demand hashrate, spending about 119,000 satoshis, about $75 at the time, to rent 1 petahash per second of computing power and paying a small solo-mining fee in the process. The miner used CKPool, a service that lets individual miners work independently while using a pool server to broadcast work and submit solutions, the company said.
While validating an entire block as a solo Bitcoin miner is rare, even a sub-$100 investment in on-demand hashrate can lead to a lucky payday. On-demand hashrate is a cloud-based approach that allows would-be miners to rent computing power to mine cryptocurrencies without owning the hardware.
The miner successfully validated Bitcoin block “938092” around 8:04 a.m. UTC on Tuesday, according to blockchain data from Mempool.space.
Related: Lone Bitcoin miner wins block using tiny, cheap rig — ‘1 in a million chance’
Solo wins remain statistically rare
While validating a block as a solo miner is a rare occurrence, 21 Bitcoin miners have managed the feat over the past year, cashing in a total of 66 BTC, worth $4.1 million at current prices. This marks a 17% increase in solo blocks found during the past year, according to solo miner data aggregator Bennet.
Data shows that a solo block is mined at an average interval of 17.2 days.
Related: How 5 solo Bitcoin miners cashed in over $350K each in 2025
Bitcoin mining industry recovers from US winter storms
Bitcoin mining difficulty climbed to 144.4 trillion after the latest adjustment, marking a 15% rise.
The adjustment reversed an 11% drop that occurred due to severe US winter storms earlier this month, the sharpest decline in hashrate since China’s 2021 mining ban.
Hashrate measures the total computing power behind the Bitcoin network. The network’s difficulty is adjusted every 2,016 blocks, about every two weeks, to keep block production near its 10-minute target.
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