2025-02-11 02:01:02 by Decrypt

Another solo Bitcoin miner scored big Monday, mining a block and bagging a 3.125 BTC reward without the help of a major company’s resources. As first flagged by journalist Pete Rizzo, an unknown miner on Monday processed Bitcoin block 883,181. The block contained 3,071 transactions and the miner received a payout of 3.125 BTC, as well as 0.033 BTC in fees. That’s a grand total of 3.158 BTC. At Bitcoin's price of about $98,300 per coin at the time of the block win, that adds up to a reward of around $310,000.It isn’t clear how the miner managed to mine the block, but some speculated on X (formerly Twitter) that they may have used a $200 hobby machine. Bitcoin miners are operations that work to process transactions and keep the Bitcoin network secure.Mining Bitcoin gets gradually harder—and more energy-intensive—as the years go on, and therefore requires more resources.Most blocks mined on a day-to-day basis are done via huge industrial operations: warehouses full of expensive and noisy mining machines run by companies, many of which are public ones trading on U.S. stock exchanges.But every so often, a “solo miner” may get lucky and mine a block. The chances of doing this, though, are slim—and it has become a bit like winning the lottery.Just last month, a solo miner managed to mine a block using an old, cheap machine—but it later emerged that the operation had received hash power from a bigger, more established miner to help do the work.Edited by Andrew HaywardDaily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.