Why do independent miners frequently win block jackpots in "lottery-style" mining?

By Mat Di Salvo, Decrypt

Compiled by: Feilx, PANews

Last week, another Bitcoin miner broke the norm by independently processing a block and receiving a reward of 3.125 Bitcoins. At that time, the total reward (including transaction fees) was $259,637. In recent months, there have been several cases of independent miners mining Bitcoin blocks.

Is it the miners who are lucky? Is independent mining becoming more common? Can the average person connect an amateur mining rig and succeed with a minimum of resources compared to a publicly traded miner?

The answers vary. The term "independent miner" is used to describe a range of miners, from those who mine as a personal hobby to groups that prefer to operate more cautiously and privately. Their success rate is increasing, but not significantly — and the total number is unlikely to surge dramatically.

Scott Norris, CEO of independent Bitcoin miner Optiminer, stated that mining without the support of large mining pools is "still like playing the lottery."

In 2022, independent miners using Solo CKPool (a service that allows anonymous miners to mine without running their own full Bitcoin node) processed 7 blocks. In 2023, this number jumped to 12 blocks. In 2024, this number reached 16 blocks.

However, a block mined with Solo CKPool doesn't necessarily mean that someone is mining Bitcoin alone in their bedroom with a very low hash rate. Some crypto people have made this claim, but it's wrong.

The mining pool industry is dominated by a handful of large companies – such as Foundry, AntPool, and F2Pool. Miners connect to mining pools, share resources, and distribute rewards. With a service like Solo CKPool, miners are rewarded once they find a block and keep almost all of the rewards.

As the Bitcoin network grows, mining requires more electricity and resources, and mining is usually a business run by publicly traded companies. Some Bitcoin enthusiasts believe that this is bad for Bitcoin because the Bitcoin network should be as decentralized as possible.

Amateur mining devices like Bitaxe and FutureBit Apollo, priced between $200 and $500, have now become the favorites among "Bitcoin extremists." In January of this year, a FutureBit Apollo processed a block, thanks to a nonprofit organization that donated hash power from other machines to this one.

At the time, anonymous Bitcoin miner Econoalchemist said on Platform X that their idea was to "dismantle the proprietary mining empire and make Bitcoin and free technology accessible to all."

Although the likelihood of this vision being realized is small, the rise of amateur miners in recent months may be driving a significant increase in the success rate of individual mining.

"Every once in a while, and more often, a Bitaxe or similar small mining rig processes a block independently and runs quietly in someone's house," says Econoalchemist. ”

Scott Norris of Optimer pointed out that enterprises can process blocks by having a large hash rate without going through large mining pools.

Even Solo Satoshi, who is based in Houston, Texas and sells mining rigs like Bitaxe Gamma, says on his website that with a $180 Bitaxe machine with a hash rate of 1.2 TH/s, the odds of mining a block per day are 0.00068390%.

But Matt Howard, the founder of Solo Satoshi, says that investing in independent mining isn't necessarily about making money. "The main goal is to further decentralize. Finding a block and getting rewarded with Bitcoin is an added bonus. For Bitcoin extremists, they understand that mining needs to be decentralized. ”

Related reading: In the context of global deregulation of BTC mining, can it still participate in mining now?