A solo miner has once again proven that anything is possible in the world of Bitcoin. An anonymous participant of the Public Pool managed to mine block #957,382 using a tiny Bitaxe device. The reward was 3.1382 BTC — approximately $200,000 at the current exchange rate.
The miner's equipment operated for about eight hours with an average hashrate of 995.2 GH/s (nearly 1 TH/s). To put this into perspective: at this power level, the probability of finding a block is roughly one chance in 18,000 years. Nevertheless, this is the second confirmed case where a Bitaxe has solo-mined a block through Public Pool.
The Bitaxe itself is an open-source ASIC miner based on the Bitmain BM1370 chip, used in industrial Antminer S21 units. Bitaxe Gamma series models deliver between 1 and 1.3 TH/s with a power consumption of just 15–21 W. The price of such a device ranges from $60 to $150. In effect, the miner recouped its equipment cost thousands of times over in a single successful transaction.
The solo mining trend is gaining momentum
Since the beginning of 2026, solo miners have found 12 blocks. The most recent case before this occurred on June 29, when a Solo CKPool participant received 3.16 BTC. And on May 31, a miner mined a block using a cluster of 14 Canaan Nano devices with a combined hashrate of 157 TH/s through the Braiins Solo service.
Over the past 12 months, solo miners have discovered 24 blocks — a 41% increase compared to the previous year. Total payouts amounted to 75.44 BTC. The average interval between finds is 15.2 days, with the longest gap reaching 58 days.
Mining difficulty declines, industry seeks new paths
On July 12, after the latest recalculation, Bitcoin mining difficulty decreased by 5% to 127.17 T. In mid-June, the metric had dropped by 10.09%, but then recovered by 7.15%. Against the backdrop of worsening conditions in the industry, many major Bitcoin mining companies have accelerated their transition into the artificial intelligence sector, signaling a structural shift in the industry.
My comment: The success of a solo miner with a Bitaxe is not just a lottery ticket, but a powerful signal for small-scale miners. Even with minimal hashrate, with the right pool choice and a bit of luck, one can receive a reward that fully covers equipment costs for years to come. However, this should not be viewed as a strategy — it is pure luck, and its probability remains astronomically low.