Solo Bitcoin miner earns $200K block reward with $150 Bitaxe
A solo Bitcoin miner used a Bitaxe device to mine Bitcoin block 957,382 and claim 3.1382 BTC, worth about $200,000.
- A $150 Bitaxe mined one Bitcoin block and earned its operator roughly $200,000 in rewards.
- The device averaged 995 GH/s, making the successful block discovery an extremely unlikely solo-mining event.
- Solo miners found 24 blocks during the past year as network difficulty eased in July.
The machine reportedly ran for eight hours through Public Pool before submitting the winning share.
The payout included the 3.125 BTC block subsidy and about 0.0132 BTC in transaction fees. Public Pool called it the second block found by a single Bitaxe through its hosted service. Blockchain records confirm block 957,382.
Low-power Bitaxe beats industrial-scale odds
The miner averaged about 995.2 gigahashes per second, or just under one terahash per second. That represents a tiny share of Bitcoin’s network computing power, measured in hundreds of exahashes per second. CoinDesk estimated that a machine running at that rate would find a block about once in 18,000 years on average.
The estimate describes probability, not a fixed waiting period. Every valid hash can solve the next block. The Bitaxe Gamma documentation says the device uses one BM1370 chip, the same chip found in Bitmain’s larger Antminer S21 Pro machines. Its typical performance sits near 1.2 TH/s with low power use.
Public Pool lets the miner keep the reward
The winning machine connected through Public Pool, a solo-mining service that does not divide rewards among participants like a standard pool. In a normal pool, miners combine computing power and receive smaller payments based on contributed work.
Solo mining provides no payment unless the machine finds a valid block. A successful operator can claim the full subsidy and transaction fees. Public Pool said, “Block #2 on hosted Public-Pool. By a lone Bitaxe.” One successful hash created the entire payout.
Solo Bitcoin block wins rise in 2026
Solo miners found 24 Bitcoin blocks during the past 12 months, a 41% increase from the previous year, according to CoinDesk. Twelve arrived during 2026. Other recent winners used CKPool, rented computing power or small groups of home mining equipment.
As previously reported by crypto.news, a solo miner earned about $271,000 in December 2025 after finding block 928,351. Another received roughly $282,000 that month despite odds estimated near one in 30,000.
The increase in successful blocks does not make solo mining predictable. Bitaxe devices can sell for between $60 and $150, but their expected income remains extremely low. Most users could run identical machines for years without finding a block.
Mining difficulty falls as operators face pressure
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty fell 5% to 127.17 trillion at block 957,600 on July 11. The adjustment followed slower block production and lower network hashrate. Bitcoin changes difficulty every 2,016 blocks to keep average block times near ten minutes.
The reduction followed a 10.09% drop in June. As reported by crypto.news, lower Bitcoin prices and machine shutdowns weakened mining competition. Miners have also redirected power toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing services as margins remain tight.
Lower difficulty slightly improves the odds for active miners, including home devices. It does not remove the gap between a one-terahash Bitaxe and industrial facilities operating millions of times more computing power.
The $200,000 payout remains a rare event rather than evidence of reliable income from a $150 miner. Bitcoin lets small operators compete for the same reward, while probability favors miners controlling far greater hashrate.
