Independent miners create miracles! With only 6 TH/s hash power, solo mine Bitcoin and win a prize of 300,000

January 13th, a solo miner claimed 3.125 BTC, approximately $300,000 USD. In the past December, they mined 22 times, with an average of 15.6 days between wins. The probability of a 6 TH/s machine mining a block is 1/170 million, with an expected time of 3,000 years. The Poisson process is memoryless, and the efforts of tens of thousands of miners worldwide keep the miracle going. CKPool charges a 2% fee; 20,950 users contribute 188 PB of hash power.

The statistical miracle and probability paradox of 15.6 days between wins

Tracking data shows that although the expected waiting time for an individual player is extremely long, the average interval between two solo wins is 15.6 days. On January 13th, block number 932,129 was mined and awarded to an anonymous solo miner, who received 3.155 BTC (including subsidy and fees), worth about $291,555 USD. The reward was not distributed among thousands of pool participants but was claimed entirely by a single address.

Bennet’s compiled solo mining tracking data shows that over the past 12 months, 22 verified solo blocks were mined, with an average of 15.6 days between successful mining events. In all tracked settings, the average interval between two wins for solo miners is 15.6 days, with the longest gap lasting 54 days. During this period, the total reward allocated to solo miners was approximately 69.35 BTC.

This statistical result seems counterintuitive. A single miner is expected to wait 3,000 years to win, yet in reality, a solo miner succeeds roughly every 15.6 days. The paradox is explained by the properties of the Poisson process. Mining is a memoryless lottery; each attempt is independent. Hash power determines the probability of mining each block, but probabilities do not guarantee an even distribution over short periods.

Three statistical features of solo mining

22 victories in December: up 29% year-over-year, indicating rising interest in solo mining

Average interval of 15.6 days: far shorter than the 3,000-year expectation for an individual miner, due to the large global miner base

Total reward of 69.35 BTC: about $6.5 million USD distributed among 22 lucky winners

A mining rig with 6 TH/s running for a month has only a 0.0025% chance of finding at least one block. That’s nearly zero, but not zero. Multiplying this tiny probability by the tens of thousands of independent miners worldwide reveals that someone often hits a massive block. This is the law of large numbers in action: single events are highly unlikely, but many attempts make the impossible inevitable.

The disparity between 6 TH/s and 1,024 EH/s and lottery logic

Mathematics is brutally precise. According to Hashrate Index data, by mid-January 2026, the Bitcoin network’s hash rate will be about 1,024 exahashes per second. This means roughly 102.4 billion terahashes are competing to solve each block. Amateur miners using a 6 TH/s ASIC miner have about a 1/170 million chance of mining a block each attempt. With such hash power, the expected waiting time exceeds 3,000 years.

A dramatic example occurred on November 23, 2025, when a miner with only 6 TH/s hash power, with a probability of about 1.7 hundred millionths per attempt, successfully mined a block through CKPool and received the entire reward. This extreme case proves that even in a market dominated by industrial-scale operations, small miners still have a chance. It’s not because the algorithm favors the weak, but because of the inherent randomness of probability.

If the goal is stable income, solo mining is not very profitable. Pool mining’s rewards are proportional to the miner’s contributed hash power, turning reward volatility into predictable returns. For example, a miner contributing 200 TH/s to a pool can expect to receive a share of the pool’s rewards roughly proportional to their contribution, with ongoing payouts. A solo miner with 200 TH/s may go years without success, then suddenly receive 3.125 BTC plus fees.

Both methods have the same expected value, and the long-term return per unit of hash power is ultimately the same, but their variance distributions differ greatly. Industrial miners need predictable income to cover debts, operational costs, and electricity contracts. Volatility is an unhedgeable risk. Solo mining persists because some miners value the volatility itself. Some run hardware as a hobby or ideology, not solely for profit maximization.

The psychological allure of winning a full block far exceeds the risk of almost certain failure. Some treat solo mining as a lottery; from an expected value perspective, it’s economically irrational, but as entertainment or tail-risk gambling, it’s justifiable.

CKPool revolution and the lottery alliance of 20,950 users

Most solo mining victories come from services like Solo CKPool, which provide Stratum work coordination, allowing individual miners to compete for the full block reward without running the entire stack themselves. CKPool explicitly positions itself as “non-pool,” because there’s no reward sharing among participants. Each miner’s hash power independently competes for the entire block reward.

If a miner connected to Solo CKPool finds a valid block, the Coinbase transaction pays the reward directly to that miner’s address, minus a 2% service fee. Currently, CKPool has about 20,950 users contributing approximately 188 PB of hash power. This user base demonstrates the ongoing appeal of solo mining—over twenty thousand willing to try this “almost impossible, but what if?” game.

Infrastructure improvements have also lowered technical barriers. In 2015, running independent mining software required operating a full Bitcoin node, configuring Stratum software, and managing network connections. CKPool and public pools simplified the process—just point your hardware to a URL or install a plug-and-play app. The easier solo mining becomes, the more miners try, and the more visible solo mining’s potential rewards are.

A newer model involves self-hosted pool software, such as the Public Pool in the Umbrel ecosystem. This open-source app allows miners to run their own independent pools using their own nodes. If they find a block, they receive the entire reward. It eliminates service fees but requires more complex technical setup. All models share the principle that, upon successfully finding a block, the miner receives the entire block reward, not a proportional share based on contribution over time. Miners either win everything or nothing.

Today, the network produces 144 blocks. Most rewards flow to industrial mining companies. But in this stream of blocks, there will always be another independent miner who mines a block. The probability does not increase, the difficulty does not decrease, and the network scale continues to grow. Yet, the probability seems unaffected by scale; lightning still strikes the target.