Solo Miner Earns ~$200K in BTC After 100 PH Hashrate Spike

A solo Bitcoin miner struck gold early Monday, solving block 960,804 at 02:11 UTC and collecting roughly $200,000 in BTC. The block paid 3.15689830 BTC — the 3.125 BTC block subsidy plus about 0.032 BTC in fees — and contained 4,243 transactions. The payout went to address bc1qdyqjq9qccp34pyv3kxmsrkn7p0amnsqqy8kdeq, according to CKPool’s pseudonymous developer Dr -ck. This marks the 317th solo block found through CKPool. Dr -ck noted the winner’s hashrate was “wildly variable — presumably rental — peaking at 100 PH.” Against a network hashrate of roughly 924 EH/s (per mempool.space), that peak represented about 0.011% of the total, giving the miner roughly a one-in-64-days chance of a find at that level. By comparison, a hobbyist running a 100 TH/s machine (about one‑thousandth of 100 PH) faces far longer odds — roughly 1 in 62,750 per day, or an average wait of about 172 years. Solo mining — where an individual or entity mines for block rewards rather than joining a pooled payout system — still produces headline-making wins. CKPool lets miners point hardware at its infrastructure without operating a full Bitcoin node, taking a 2% cut when a block is found. Solo successes come from a wide range of players, from low-cost hobby rigs like the Bitaxe and FutureBit Apollo to rented or leased farms. Recent solo payouts have included roughly $225,000 in April and several other six-figure wins ($210K, $266K, $365K, $350K), with dollar amounts fluctuating with Bitcoin’s market price rather than changes to protocol rewards. The block subsidy remains fixed at 3.125 BTC until the next halving, expected at block 1,050,000 — around 89,000 blocks away — when the reward will drop to 1.5625 BTC, likely in spring 2028. Dr -ck also highlighted that the block came “despite the chaos” from the recent Coldcard hardware-wallet exploit, an incident with estimated losses of roughly $114 million. At the time of the block, Bitcoin was trading around $63,700, up about 1.1% on the day (CoinGecko). Meanwhile, prediction market Myriad shows traders remain cautious: users placed a 68% probability on Bitcoin moving toward $55,000 as its next significant price action.