The Unlikely Success of a Bitcoin Mining Device

In a surprising turn of events, a Bitcoin mining device with a hashrate of only 500 gigahashes per second (Gh/s) managed to mine a block on July 24, earning a reward of $206,000 in Bitcoin. This feat is particularly remarkable considering the device has just a 1 in 1.1 billion chance of achieving such a milestone approximately every ten minutes. The device, known as “Bitaxe,” is manufactured by D-Central Technologies and is roughly the size of a human hand, as demonstrated by the YouTube channel “How Much?”

The achievement was verified by Bitcoin mining device retailer Altair Technology in an X post. At 11:43 am UTC on July 24, Bitcoin block number 853742 was successfully mined, resulting in the fortunate miner receiving a reward worth around $206,000 at the current BTC price. Data from Solo CKPool’s blockchain indicated that a total of 2,652.36 BTC, equivalent to $176,896,079, were transmitted in the block, with the average transaction being 0.6093 BTC worth $40,636.53. Solo CKPool, the node infrastructure service connected to the Bitaxe device, earned a total reward of 3.13 BTC worth $208,751, which included an additional 0.0675 BTC worth $4,501.83 paid as transaction fees from 4,353 transactions included in the block.

To provide some context, the current total hash power of the Bitcoin network, as per Bitcoin analytics platform CoinWarz, is 551.30 exahashes per second (Eh/s), which is equivalent to an astonishing 551,303,337,631,415,300,000 H/s. This vast figure is around 1.1 billion times more powerful than the Bitaxe device. Thus, the device’s odds of successfully mining a block about every ten minutes were a mere 1 in 1.1 billion.

Bitcoin mining is notorious for being extremely energy-intensive, as miners face substantial electricity costs regardless of their success in mining a block. This financial burden makes solo Bitcoin mining comparable to participating in a high-stakes lottery. However, for the fortunate solo miner who used the Bitaxe device, the risk taken has unequivocally paid off with tremendous rewards.