The Wild Story Of A Tiny Bitcoin Mining Win
Every once in a while the Bitcoin network delivers a story that feels like a gaming loot drop with legendary rarity. This is one of those stories.
A solo miner using only 6 terahashes per second of computing power managed to mine an entire Bitcoin block through the CKpool solo mining service. To put that into perspective, their odds were estimated at about one in 180 million. Yet they still hit the jackpot.
If you are new to Bitcoin mining this might sound like winning a global lottery with a budget PC. Let us break down what actually happened and why it matters for both beginners and mining veterans.
What This Miner Actually Did
First you need to understand how Bitcoin mining usually works.
The Bitcoin network groups transactions into blocks.
Miners use computing power to try to find a valid block by solving a cryptographic puzzle.
The first miner to find a valid block gets the block reward which currently includes newly created bitcoin plus transaction fees.
Most miners join large mining pools. In a pool many miners combine their computing power, and rewards are shared among them based on how much work each miner contributes. That way everyone gets smaller more frequent payouts instead of waiting an extremely long time to win a whole block.
Solo mining is the opposite. You do not share rewards with anyone, but you also do not share the work. If your computing power is tiny compared to the whole network you could mine for years and never find a single block. It is the high risk high reward mode of Bitcoin mining.
This miner chose to solo mine using CKpool, a service that makes solo mining easier by handling the technical side of connecting to the network and running full nodes. But crucially CKpool does not split rewards like a normal pool. If you find a block you keep the entire block reward.
With only 6 terahashes per second of hash rate this miner was basically playing on ultra hard mode. Modern dedicated mining hardware often runs in the range of hundreds of terahashes per second per machine. Big industrial operations combine thousands of those machines and push into exahash territory which is millions of terahashes.
Yet against all probability this tiny miner found a valid block and received the full reward on their own.
Why The Odds Were So Extreme
To understand the one in 180 million figure you need to know how difficulty and probability work in Bitcoin mining.
The total Bitcoin network hash rate represents how much computing power is pointed at the network worldwide.
Your personal hash rate is your slice of that total pie.
The chance of you mining a block is roughly your hash rate divided by the total network hash rate over a given period.
When the solo miner with 6 terahashes joins the network they are competing against a global hash rate measured in exahashes which is a million times larger units. That means their share is microscopic. Statistically they were expected to mine a block only once in hundreds of millions of tries.
Mining is basically repeated guessing of numbers at incredible speed. Each guess is independent. Even if your odds are terrible you are still in the game as long as you are submitting valid work. Over a long enough timeline the math usually wins and tiny miners rarely see a block. But probability always leaves room for crazy outliers and this was one of them.
What This Means For New Or Small Miners
This story is exciting but it should not trick you into thinking solo mining with low hash rate is a consistent way to earn bitcoin. It is more like a high variance gamble.
Here are a few takeaways if you are just getting into mining:
Solo mining with very low hash rate is extremely unlikely to produce a block. You might mine for years with zero rewards.
Pooled mining is usually better for beginners because it smooths out payouts and reduces variance.
Services like CKpool exist for people who still want to try solo mining without running all the Bitcoin infrastructure themselves.
Stories like this are rare which is exactly why they make headlines in the community.
Think of it like playing a game where the rarest loot has a microscopic drop rate. Someone somewhere eventually gets it and screenshots go viral but most players will never see that item drop. The same idea applies to this miner. They rolled a very lucky number.
At the same time this event is a reminder that Bitcoin is still an open permissionless network. You do not need a warehouse full of hardware or a big company behind you to participate. With some basic gear and the right setup you can connect from almost anywhere and have a tiny chance at landing a full block reward just like this miner did.
For most people mining is better approached as a long term investment in infrastructure and efficiency rather than a lottery ticket. But every rare win like this keeps the dream alive that even a small player can occasionally beat the odds in one of the most competitive digital systems on the planet.
Original article and image: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cryptomining/hobbyist-miner-using-a-single-6-ths-asic-mines-full-bitcoin-block
