A Bitcoin mining device with an unusually low hashrate of 500 gigahashes per second (Gh/s) successfully mined a BTC block worth $206,000, according to Altair Technology, a Bitcoin mining device retailer.
The device, called “Bitaxe” made by D-Central Technologies, is quite small—about the size of a human hand. This device was recently revealed on a YouTube channel “How Much?”
It was reportedly connected to Solo CKPool, a service that lets individual miners try solo mining without directly connecting to a Bitcoin core node.
Blockchain data confirms that Bitcoin block number 853742 was mined at 11:43 am UTC on Wednesday by this pool. Altair Technology confirms this block was mined by the Bitaxe device.
For perspective, the total hash power of the Bitcoin network is currently 552.49 exahashes per second (Eh/s), which is equivalent to 552,490,000,000 Gh/s. This means the Bitaxe operates at about one-billionth of the network’s total power. The chances of such a device successfully mining a block are roughly 1 in 1.1 billion every ten minutes.
Solo mining is financially risky for most miners as mining costs a lot of electricity even if they fail to mine a block. As a result, many of them join mining pools to share resources and distribute rewards based on their contributed hash power.
However, some Bitcoin enthusiasts believe that pool mining might lead to network centralization and argue for solo mining as an alternative. This recent event has proven that while it is very unlikely, small-scale miners can occasionally succeed in mining a block.
A similar event occurred in April when a solo miner mined a block independently using a device with 120 petahashes per second (Ph/s) of processing power, which is 240 times more powerful than the Bitaxe.
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