Solo Bitcoin Mining: A Rare Win Amidst Growing Centralization – What You Need to Know
The allure of striking digital gold remains strong in the Bitcoin world, even as mining becomes increasingly dominated by large-scale operations. On January 13, 2026, a solo Bitcoin miner defied the odds, claiming a full block reward of 3.125 BTC plus fees totaling nearly $300,000 at current prices. This win, unlike most, wasn't distributed among thousands of pool participants. It highlights the persistent, albeit improbable, opportunity for individual miners to earn significant rewards. But what does this mean for the future of solo Bitcoin mining, and how does it fit into the broader context of network hashrate and centralization concerns?
The Improbable Victory: A Deep Dive into the Numbers
The success of this solo miner isn't a testament to favorable odds, but rather to the nature of probability itself. Bitcoin’s network hashrate, currently around 1,024 exahashes per second (as of mid-January 2026), represents a colossal amount of computing power – roughly 1.024 billion terahashes – all competing to solve each block. For a hobby miner operating a 6 TH/s ASIC, the probability of finding a block is approximately one in 170 million per attempt. The expected wait time? A staggering 3,000+ years.
Understanding the Poisson Process and Mining Probability
Despite these daunting statistics, solo wins continue to occur, appearing roughly every few weeks. This phenomenon is explained by the Poisson process, a statistical model describing random events over time. Mining is essentially a memoryless lottery; each attempt is independent. The hashrate dictates the probability per block, but probability doesn’t guarantee a smooth distribution. A miner running a 6 TH/s miner for a month has a minuscule 0.0025% chance of finding a block. However, when multiplied across tens of thousands of solo miners globally, the likelihood of *someone* hitting the jackpot increases significantly.
Data compiled by solo mining tracker Bennet shows 22 verified solo blocks mined over the past 12 months, averaging an interval of 15.6 days between wins. Block 932129, mined on January 13, 2026, yielded 3.155 BTC (subsidy plus fees), valued at approximately $291,555 to the lucky miner.
How Solo Mining Works in 2026: Services and Infrastructure
Most solo wins are facilitated by services like Solo CKPool. These aren’t traditional mining pools that split rewards. Instead, they provide Stratum work coordination, allowing individual miners to compete for the full block reward without managing the entire mining stack themselves. CKPool explicitly positions itself as “not a pool” in the economic sense, emphasizing the independent competition for the reward.
Solo CKPool and Public Pool: Options for Independent Miners
If a miner connected to Solo CKPool finds a valid block, the coinbase transaction directly pays that miner’s address, minus a 2% service fee. Currently, CKPool boasts around 20,950 users contributing approximately 188 petahashes of hashrate. Alternatively, miners can utilize CKPool’s coordination service, a self-hosted Public Pool, or build their own solo infrastructure – all delivering full block rewards.
A newer approach is running your own solo pool software, exemplified by Public Pool within the Umbrel ecosystem. This open-source application allows miners to operate a solo mining pool using their own node, retaining the full reward upon a successful block find. It eliminates the service fee but requires more technical expertise.
The Odds: A Realistic Assessment of Your Chances
At a network hashrate of approximately 1,024 EH/s, a miner’s probability of finding any given block is their hashrate divided by the network’s total hashrate. For a 6 TH/s device, this translates to roughly one in 170 million per block. The expected time to find one block scales inversely with this probability. Given that Bitcoin produces a block roughly every 10 minutes, a 6 TH/s miner would theoretically wait around 3,247 years. Even a more powerful 200 TH/s ASIC would take approximately 97 years to find a block. At 1 petahash, the expected wait drops to 19.5 years.
However, expected time doesn’t equate to probability over a fixed period. A 6 TH/s miner has roughly a 0.0308% chance of finding at least one block over a full year. While seemingly negligible, this probability isn’t zero, and across a large population of miners, wins become predictable in aggregate.
Why Mid-Range Hashrate Miners See More Success
Solo mining wins tend to cluster around mid-range hashrate levels. A miner running 2.3 petahashes, while below industrial scale, is significantly above hobbyist hardware and has roughly an 11% chance of finding a block within a year. This explains why, across a large enough population, wins become statistically predictable.
Recent Solo Mining Wins: A Consistent Pattern
Solo block discoveries have maintained a steady cadence over the past year. Block 920,440, mined on October 23, 2025, was awarded to a Public Pool miner, who collected 3.125 BTC plus approximately 0.016 BTC in fees. Block 924,569 on November 21, 2025, delivered roughly 3.146 BTC to a solo miner operating through CKPool infrastructure. A particularly striking example occurred on November 23, 2025, when a miner running just 6 TH/s successfully found a block through CKPool.
FutureBit, a manufacturer of compact Bitcoin mining devices, has documented several solo wins from Apollo miners. These devices, typically operating in the single-digit or low-double-digit terahash range, are too small for meaningful pool rewards but can occasionally find blocks. Bennet’s solo mining tracker shows 22 solo blocks found over the past 12 months, a 29% year-over-year increase. The average interval between solo wins is 15.6 days, with the longest drought lasting 54 days. Total rewards distributed to solo miners over this period sum to approximately 69.35 BTC.
The Economic Case for Solo Mining: Variance and Value
The economic rationale for solo Bitcoin mining is weak if optimized for consistent income. Pool mining provides proportional payouts based on contributed hashrate, smoothing variance into predictable returns. A miner contributing 200 TH/s to a pool receives their share of the pool’s rewards continuously. A solo miner with 200 TH/s receives nothing for years, then suddenly receives 3.125 BTC plus fees.
While the expected value is identical, the variance profile differs drastically. Industrial miners require predictable revenue to cover debt service, operational costs, and electricity contracts. Variance is an unhedgeable risk. However, solo mining persists because some miners value the variance itself. Many run mining hardware as a hobby or ideological commitment, not solely for profit. The psychological appeal of potentially winning a full block outweighs the near-certainty of earning nothing. Others view it as a lottery ticket – economically irrational but justifiable as entertainment or a tail-risk bet.
The Future of Solo Mining: Accessibility and Innovation
Infrastructure improvements have lowered technical barriers. In 2015, running a solo mining operation required a full Bitcoin node, Stratum software configuration, and network management. CKPool and Public Pool simplify this to pointing hardware at a URL or installing a plug-and-play app. The easier it becomes to solo mine, the more miners will try, and the more visible solo wins will become.
The January 13th block represents another data point in this established pattern. A single address received the full block reward, worth close to $300,000 at Bitcoin’s price of around $94,000. The payout structure suggests the win came through solo mining infrastructure, though the exact setup remains unconfirmed. Regardless, the win validates that solo Bitcoin mining continues to function as probability predicts: mostly silent, occasionally spectacular.
The network will produce another 144 blocks today. The vast majority of rewards will flow to industrial mining operations. But somewhere within that stream, another solo miner will eventually hit the jackpot. The odds haven’t improved, the difficulty hasn’t dropped, and the network continues to grow. Yet, probability remains indifferent to scale, and lightning still strikes.
Keywords: Solo Bitcoin Mining, Bitcoin Mining, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Mining Rewards, Network Hashrate, CKPool, Public Pool, Bitcoin Block Reward, Crypto Mining