Solo
Bitcoin
Miners seem to have had a good year, despite the increasing difficulty of mining digital currencies.
On Thursday, an individual miner managed to process a block on the largest cryptocurrency network, earning a total of 3.329 bitcoins, worth $222,438 as a reward.
Blockchain data shows that the block contained 3,285 transactions and was processed at 4:18 AM Eastern Time.
Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive process of processing blocks on the cryptocurrency network. Blocks are filled with transaction data and are part of the Bitcoin blockchain, which is a virtually impenetrable ledger and one of the most secure computational networks on Earth.
When a block is processed, miners receive newly minted coins: a fixed reward of 3.125 BTC, as well as transaction fees paid by users of the network during a specific block window.
In the past, almost anyone could participate in the mining process and mint new coins at home. However, as the network has evolved, mining difficulty has significantly increased. Nowadays, mining operations are typically carried out by large companies using warehouses and consuming a significant amount of electricity.
Bitcoin mining became even more difficult in April when the network experienced a once-every-four-years event known as the halving: an embedded event in the network’s code that reduces miner rewards.
Mining operations now have to work harder and earn fewer bitcoins. Prior to the halving event in April, miners received 6.25 bitcoins per block they processed. Before that, the reward was 12.5 bitcoins, and before that, 25 BTC. When the Bitcoin blockchain was first launched in 2009, mining rewards were 50 bitcoins.
Although miners receive fewer bitcoins every four years, they are able to sustain their operations and stay in the game because the value of cryptocurrencies has grown significantly since the network’s inception. Since the first halving of Bitcoin in 2012, the price has increased by 548,604%, currently standing at around $67,650.
While independent miners do exist, they occasionally—though rarely—may have the luck of processing a block on their own.
So far this year, solo miners have had their individual wins on Thursdays in April, July, August, and September.
Editor: Andrew Hayward
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