A solo miner recently scored a huge win by solving block 907,283 alone and earning a reward of $373,000 in a single shot.
Such an achievement is truly spectacular given that the miner in question had to beat unbelievable odds.
Getting struck by lightning is more likely
The odds of mining a solo block in a single day (with 1 PH/s) are about 1 in 4.26 million.
For comparison, the chance of being struck by lightning is about 1 in 15,300 during someone's lifetime.
Hence, you are actually 278 times more likely to be struck by lightning than solo mine Bitcoin on any given day.
Roughly 900 coins are produced on the network on a daily basis. However, a solo miner contributes only an infinitesimal share of the total Bitcoin hashrate, which currently stands at roughly 600 EH/s.
The aforementioned odds mean that one would have to mine for more than 4 million days on average in order to be able to win a single block.
Solo mining is the past
Solo mining was the only mode of mining during Bitcoin's earliest days since the first mining pools had not launched yet. The earliest Bitcoin adopters were able to produce coins with regular personal computers.
Since then, however, the network has become significantly more powerful. Solo mining was already extremely rare by 2013.
Now, solo mining is only suitable for hobbyists since they are extremely likely to earn nothing at all while still paying for electricity and maintenance.
More than 99% of all blocks are mined with the help of pools. Anomalous blocks produced by solo miners are extremely rare.
As reported by U.Today, an entire Bitcoin block was also mined solo in February.
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team