How a Solo Bitcoin Miner Beat the Odds and Banked $266K

The solo miner of Bitcoin block 888,737—won last week with a $266,000 BTC reward—shared their story with Bitcoin mining hardware creator FutureBit, whose Apollo miners helped lead to the sizable score. 

The anonymous miner, who took home more than 3.15 BTC or around $266,000 last week between the fixed reward and transaction fees, did so with a home setup composed of three FutureBit Apollo miners and one Bitmain SK19pro, according to the shared email posted to X.

“I usually have the Apollo miners set on efficiency mode,” the email reads. “During the colder months, I run the SK19Pro at 60TH during the day and 100 at night,” it continues, adding that other than some scheduled tasks that stop hashing during the peak electricity times, “everything else is the default settings.”

Solo Bitcoin Miner Hits the Jackpot, Scoring $266K Reward

A solo Bitcoin miner hit the jackpot early Friday, mining a block without a pool of supporting miners and bagging a $266,000 reward in the process. But just how realistic is such a feat? On Friday, an unknown miner processed Bitcoin block 888,737. The block contained 2,327 transactions and the miner received a payout of 3.125 BTC, as well as 0.032 BTC in fees.  At today's Bitcoin price of $84,257 per coin, that's a more than $266,000 payday. Another Solo Block for FutureBit Apollo! pic.twitter...

That setup was enough to get the ultimate reward for a solo miner. It’s also a highly unlikely win, given that large-scale publicly traded firms and mining pools dominate the industry.

“I scrolled through the Apollo website on my phone, still in the comfort of my bed,” the miner wrote. “I looked at the SOLO Mining User’s panel. What appeared next stopped me cold.” 

Moments later, launching the BlueWallet app on their iPhone, the miner confirmed their suspicions that they had successfully “found a block.”

“‘We found a block! We found a block!’ I yelled, my voice echoing through the house,” wrote the anonymous miner. “I bolted from bed, racing downstairs to my computer… there, in bold, beautiful letters were the words: block accepted. A grin spread across my face—victory was mine, and it felt incredible.” 

Despite multiple solo scores in recent months, the energy-intensive nature of mining typically leads to industrial-sized setups or mining pools taking home the vast majority of block rewards—the new Bitcoin supply that is created to reward those who verify and validate the network.

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FutureBit offers various mining products on its website for individuals looking to pursue a home mining rig. Its cheapest product starts at $376 after a discount, with other miners ranging up to a price of $2,100.

The firm did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.

Edited by Andrew Hayward