An individual miner was lucky enough to mine a block and collect 3.43 Bitcoins, equivalent to $218,000. Such an event is rare, due to the large number of active miners on the network. This miner had only one chance in 5,000 of successfully mining a block.
A miner’s bet at 3,433 Bitcoins
Even as the difficulty of mining continues to increase, and Bitcoin’s 4th halving has divided the block reward by 2, an individual miner has managed to mine a block and reap the rewards alone.
This event occurred on block number 841,286 on Sunday night. The miner, who doesn’t belong to any mining pool, extracted a block rewarding him with 3.43 Bitcoins, including 0.308 BTC in transaction fees, representing a total of $218,000.
Details of block number 841 286
This event is rare enough to be worth noting. Bitcoin mining involves finding a random number that confirms a block in order to add it to the blockchain. Due to the large number of participants who contribute to securing the network, miners typically use mining pools to pool their computing power and share rewards.
In fact, without mining pools, it’s highly unlikely that an individual miner would be able to mine a block. With a total hashrate in excess of 600 EH/s on the Bitcoin blockchain, a Bitmain Antminer S21, one of the most recent models of mining machine boasting 200 TH/s, would statistically have a 1 in 3.15 million chance of mining a block.
Who’s behind this mysterious miner?
Some Bitcoiners mine and contribute to securing the network without necessarily joining a mining pool. Some do it for fun and experimentation, while others may hope one day to mine a block and reap 100% of the reward.
At the time of the block’s validation, the miner in question was managing a capacity of 120 PH/s, representing a mining farm made up of several thousand computers. Far from the idea of individual miners, this miner finally had a 1 in 5,263 chance of mining a block.
Just a few days after Bitcoin’s 4th halving, several Internet users theorized about the identity of the lucky miner. According to them, the miner, faced with a drop in profitability, had decided to leave his mining pool, in the hope of finding a more profitable pool or having the chance to mine a block on his own. A strategy that paid off
