Today we’re learning the story of a Bitcoin block that was mined just a couple days ago by a solo miner, surprising the crypto community by successfully mining block #887,212 with just a 480 GH/s Bitaxe rig.

For some perspective, these mini-miners earn about $3 per year – yes you’re reading that correctly, per year – that is, unless it happens to be the one to mine a new block.  Running a small rig like this is often compared to buying a lotto ticket, except you only need to pay once and get to play every day.

The Odds…

Making the story even crazier – the miner used was on the low end of these low end miners – having about a 1 in 4.6 million chance to win each day. Newer models bring that down to about 1 in 1.5 million.

This miner was using solo.ckpool, a popular choice among individual miners looking to strike digital gold without joining massive pools.

Pool developer Con Kolivas emphasized how remarkable this feat was, estimating that similar rigs have less than a one-in-a-million daily chance of solving a block. Statistically speaking, the average wait time for success with a rig this size is roughly 3,500 years.

To put this into perspective, industrial-scale Bitcoin miners commonly run setups about 2000% more powerful, so beating them with a rig this size is extremely rare.

Tiny Rig, Huge Payoff

This miner earned a reward of about $260,000 at the time, or 3.15 BTC plus an extra 0.025 BTC from transaction fees, according to mempool.space.

Adding to the surprise, the Bitaxe rig used in this incredible win was ultra-affordable, selling for around $90 on Ebay.

Solo Mining Faces Giants

Today, Bitcoin mining is dominated by major players like Foundry USA, whose massive hashrate primarily comes from publicly traded giants such as Cipher Mining, Bitfarms, and Hut 8. MARA Holdings, another heavy hitter, even operates its own dedicated MARA Pool.

Unlike commercial mining hardware that’s typically proprietary, Bitaxe offers open-source solutions. Enthusiasts like Skot claim that open-source mining better reflects Bitcoin’s core decentralized spirit—making this rare win even sweeter for Bitcoin purists.

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Author: Mark Pippen
London Newsroom
GlobalCryptoPress | Breaking Crypto News

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Filed under: News - @ March 13, 2025 7:16 pm