Solo Miner Earns 3.175 BTC With 200 Ph/s Hashrate In Seven Months

A solo miner recently achieved a significant milestone by earning 3.175 BTC after successfully solving block 904,989. The miner utilized an impressive hashrate of 200 petahashes per second (Ph/s), a feat that has drawn attention within the mining community. Con Kolivas, the developer and administrator of CKpool, congratulated the miner on this accomplishment. Kolivas noted that a miner with such a high hashrate would typically solve a block approximately once every 35 days, given the current mining difficulty. This suggests that the miner may have been renting hashrate, as the 200 Ph/s is considerably higher than the hashrate of available mining hardware.

The miner began their Bitcoin mining operations on January 9, 2025, which means they achieved this block reward in just seven months. This rapid success highlights the potential for significant returns in solo mining, despite the high hashrate requirements and the associated costs. Kolivas also mentioned that the miner solved the 302nd solo block, indicating a high level of competition and the rarity of such an achievement.

In response to this event, CKpool has launched a new low-latency solo BTC pool in Brisbane, Australia. This pool is designed to service miners in the Oceania and Asia-Pacific regions, addressing latency and performance issues that can affect mining efficiency. The new pool will operate independently from the main CK pool and the EU solo BTC mining pool, ensuring optimal performance for its users. Blocks generated from the AU BTC pool will be propagated between other sibling pools and will carry the same signature as the main CK pool, with the prefix “ckpoolau.”

Kolivas predicted that the AU pool will likely be dominated by Bitaxe mining rigs, which have an average hashrate ranging between 0.4–1.2 Terahash (TH/s). However, he also noted that the pool may have the lowest hashrate compared to other solo CK pools due to the high electricity costs in Australia. The average cost of residential electricity in Australia is AUD 33 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), while commercial electricity costs between AUD 25 and AUD 45 cents per kWh. This is significantly higher than the average residential electricity rate in the United States, which is USD 12.89 cents per kWh (AUD 19.6 cents).

Despite the high costs, the daily electricity expenses for running a Bitaxe solo miner in Australia are relatively low, ranging from AUD 12 cents to AUD 22 cents per day. However, the chances of solving a Bitcoin block and winning the mining fees of 3.175 BTC are extremely low, estimated to take 14,075 years based on calculations from SoloChance. This underscores the challenges and risks associated with solo mining, even with a high hashrate.

The launch of the new AU pool by CKpool is a strategic move to cater to the growing demand for low-latency mining pools in the region. It also reflects the developer's commitment to providing efficient and reliable mining services to the community. The pool's separation from the main CK pool and the EU solo BTC mining pool ensures that miners in the Oceania and Asia-Pacific regions can benefit from optimized performance and reduced latency. This development is likely to attract more miners to the pool, further enhancing its hashrate and competitiveness in the mining landscape.