A solo Bitcoin (BTC) miner successfully mined a block on Saturday, collecting the 3.125 BTC block reward, valued at $372,773.
The miner, operating through the Solo CK pool, a solo mining service, successfully mined block 907283, which contained 4,038 transactions and block fees totalling $3,436.
Rising network hashrate and difficulty make it increasingly harder for solo miners to compete with large-scale, corporate mining firms.
Despite the odds against solo miners, one successfully mined a block in February 2025, followed by a miner who used just 2.3 petahashes to solve the puzzle and collect the $350,000 block subsidy earlier in July.
The improbable, and nearly impossible, victories of solo miners are a reminder that even smaller players can still successfully add blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain at a time when mining is dominated by large, publicly-traded companies.
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Rising network difficulty and hashrate squeezing professional mining companies
Even established corporations are feeling the squeeze of rising network difficulty and hashrate, coupled with a reduced block subsidy.
Several large mining operations have diversified into AI data centers and high-performance computing to make up for shortfalls in the mining business and rising competition.
The current Bitcoin network difficulty is about 126 trillion and is floating near all-time highs. Bitcoin’s network difficulty is also trending up over time.
This forces miners to expend ever-greater computing and power resources to mine a single block, which yields a 3.125 BTC reward, valued at about $373,000 at current prices.
The competitive industry runs on thin margins, incentivizing companies to find the cheapest energy resources to maintain the maximum uptime, which is affected by weather events, overall climate, and power continuity.
In June, several Bitcoin miners in Texas were forced to curb their energy consumption to avoid paying peak demand charges to the grid operator, causing a fall in short-term block production.
MARA was among the mining firms that reported lower output numbers for June, due to weather conditions slowing down mining operations.
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