It was a moment that echoed throughout the Bitcoin mining community in disbelief: on June 5, a solo miner using CKpool stunned the industry by completing block 899,826 and bringing home a reward of $330,386, while competing against the all-time highest network difficulty in Bitcoin history, no less.
In a landscape now dominated by industrial-scale mining farms and pools, this one operator's win is the digital equivalent of a lottery jackpot.
The odds were truly staggering. With the Bitcoin network’s difficulty at a record 126.98 trillion and the hashrate near 800 exahashes per second, the chance of a solo miner validating a block was roughly 1 in 1.6 million — statistically, a feat most miners would expect to achieve only once every three decades.
But this miner did manage to do just that by momentarily bumping their hashrate to an estimated 259 PH/s, likely by renting extra power for the attempt.
CKpool developer Con Kolivas has stated that such a strategy, mixing one's own hardware with temporarily rented hashpower — can give solo miners a fighting chance, if only for so long.
The block itself was a big one: 1.66 MB in size, containing 3,680 transactions, and rewarding the miner with 3.15 BTC (the standard 6.25 BTC subsidy, minus fees and adjustments).
The reward included around $2,761 in transaction fees — a fairly modest amount, suggesting low network congestion at the time. What makes this win even sweeter is that the surrounding blocks were mined by industrial heavyweights like Foundry USA, which says a lot about how rarely individuals manage to outcompete the big players.
Solo mining, both Braiins and Luxor engineers agree, is a true baptism by fire of patience, luck, and technical skill. "Solo mining is like playing the Bitcoin lottery," says one Braiins OS engineer.
"You can go years without a win, but with the right firmware optimizations, overclocked ASICs, and a bit of rented hashpower, you can at least buy yourself a few more tickets."
Luxor's Aaron Foster says solo mining is "a way to keep the network decentralized and prove that anyone, not just large pools, can still win."
For the motivated who want to try it out, experts recommend joining a solo pool like CKpool or Braiins Solo, tweaking ASIC firmware for best efficiency, and for the wild-at-heart — renting hashpower for a one-off burst. But they caution: don't wager more than you can afford to lose. The vast majority of solo miners will never receive a block reward, and the electricity costs add up fast.
The Bitcoin community celebrated the win as a triumph for decentralization.
On Reddit, one miner remarked, "This is what keeps me mining solo. It's not about the odds — it's about proving the little guy still has a shot."
The bottom line
Solo mining wins are rare but still possible — even at record difficulty, the little guy can strike it big. For most, though, it remains a high-risk, high-reward lottery. This story is a reminder that decentralization is alive, and with the right strategy and a bit of luck, anyone can make Bitcoin history.
