The miner earned $263,000 with a relatively simple Bitaxe mining machine
A solo Bitcoin miner has recently achieved a remarkable feat by using a basic mining rig to capture a full mining reward worth $263,000. This miner, who used a small, affordable 480-gigahash per second (GH/s) Bitaxe machine, solved a block in the blockchain and earned 3.15 BTC for solving block 887,212 on March 10, 2025. This included the standard 3.125 BTC mining reward plus an additional 0.025 BTC from transaction fees.
Congratulations to a super lucky miner bc1qaxccz85rx6ywy2xw6ugtm6u37mvew6qqn7lgtd with only 3.3TH who solved the 297th solo block at https://t.co/UWgBvLkDqc with a 480GH bitaxe! https://t.co/OKIq0tfSOX
— Dr -ck (@ckpooldev) March 10, 2025
Typically, mining rewards like these are claimed by large-scale mining operations that use powerful rigs operating at speeds of over 230,000 GH/s. For comparison, the miner’s device, which has a much lower hashrate, would normally have a less than 1 in a million chance of finding a block per day. In fact, it would usually take around 3,500 years for such a small rig to successfully mine a block.
This accomplishment is significant because solo mining is incredibly rare, especially with the use of less powerful rigs. Most Bitcoin mining today is done in large mining pools like Foundry USA and MARA Holdings, which have substantial resources and much greater computational power. These large pools dominate the Bitcoin mining space, often leaving solo miners with slim chances of success.
The miner’s machine, the Bitaxe, is a pocket-sized device that stands in stark contrast to the powerful, high-cost rigs used by major companies. Although these smaller rigs are not typically profitable, some creators of open-source Bitcoin miners, like the Bitaxe builders, aim to challenge the closed nature of the Bitcoin mining industry. These projects make mining more transparent and accessible to the public, counteracting the secrecy surrounding the industry.
This solo miner’s success is a rare but fascinating example of the potential that even basic mining rigs can have in the vast Bitcoin network.
