Solo mining: Is it possible to mine Bitcoin alone?

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Solo miners’ successes

The autumn began positively for solo miners — on September 1, an independent miner found Bitcoin block number 912,632. The reward amounted to 3.147 BTC, worth around $340,000 at the time.

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This case is not unique — similar events have occurred more than 300 times. For example, on July 3, an independent miner discovered block number 903,883. Before that, the same thing happened on June 5, and even earlier in March.

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Still, to say that all these miners found blocks completely on their own would be incorrect, since all of this took place through a special pool — CK Pool. To understand what this means, let’s briefly recall what mining is and how it has evolved.

The evolution of mining

Mining emerged with the launch of the Bitcoin network in January 2009. In the early years, coins could be mined on regular computers, since network difficulty remained low and competition was minimal. Over time, miners moved from CPUs to more powerful GPUs, then to specialized FPGA and ASIC chips, which multiplied hash rates. Alongside this, network difficulty grew, and the chances of an individual user finding a block became smaller and smaller.

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Competition for new coins led to the rise of mining pools: groups of miners combined their power and shared block rewards proportionally to their contribution. This made income more predictable but also increased centralization and the dominance of large companies. Against this backdrop, Bitcoin enthusiasts who could not compete with industrial-scale BTC production began looking for alternatives.

How CK Pool works

A breakthrough in this direction came in 2014 with the launch of the solo-mining pool CK Pool. It was created by Australian developer Con Kolivas, best known as the author of popular mining programs CGMiner and BFGMiner.

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CK Pool works so that any miner can connect to its infrastructure, but if a block is found, the entire reward goes directly to that miner, rather than being shared among participants as in ordinary pools. At the same time, it’s not necessary to own an expensive, top-of-the-line Bitmain miner. To join the pool, it’s enough to have a home miner starting at $25.

Decentralization and resistance

Solo mining is important for maintaining Bitcoin’s decentralization. Even though the chances of finding a block are small, the very fact that anyone can participate makes the system more resilient and fair. This not only strengthens trust in Bitcoin but also serves as a reminder of its original idea — a financial system without centralized control.

The creation of CK Pool gave enthusiasts the opportunity to compete with giant mining farms once again. Now, it’s not only corporations with hundreds of ASICs that can mine blocks, but also individual miners with inexpensive home equipment. These cases add diversity to the ecosystem, inspire the community, and highlight that Bitcoin remains open to anyone willing to put in the effort and trust in luck.

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