Lightning struck the crypto world last week when a palm-sized Bitaxe mining device—with just 456 petahashes per second—somehow managed to solve Bitcoin block 858,978. The tiny miner scored big on August 29, pocketing a cool 3.27 BTC reward worth roughly $199,094. Not bad for a device that costs about $179.
Let’s be real. This shouldn’t have happened. The Bitaxe was operating at a minuscule 0.012% of the network’s total hashrate. The odds? About 1 in 1.1 billion. It’s like winning the lottery, except this lottery runs every 10 minutes. Actually, it’s worse than Powerball’s 1-in-300-million chance. Statisticians call this a once-in-3,500-years event.
The odds were more astronomical than the lottery—a 1-in-1.1-billion shot that defied 3,500 years of statistical probability.
The global Bitcoin network churns away at 665 exahashes per second. That’s 665,000,000,000,000,000,000 calculations every second. And somehow, this little underdog found the winning number. Pure dumb luck. These complex calculations are essential for Proof of Work validation, which remains Bitcoin’s core security mechanism despite its energy demands.
The Bitaxe isn’t your typical mining rig. It’s tiny. Palm-sized. Consumes just 1 watt of power. It’s designed for “lottery mining” – the crypto equivalent of buying a scratch-off ticket instead of investing in Treasury bonds.
Most miners join pools, sharing rewards to get consistent payouts. Solo miners? They’re gambling. All or nothing. Out of 859,000 blocks ever mined, only 290 were solved by solo miners. Now there’s 291. Solo mining requires simply entering a pool URL and wallet address into your ASIC miner to get started.
The block itself contained 2,391 transactions. Current block rewards stand at 3.125 BTC plus transaction fees, which typically add another 0.2-0.3 BTC. Not chump change at today’s $61,000 Bitcoin price. Altair Technology proudly confirmed the achievement on social media, noting this was likely the first time someone mined a solo BTC block with a Bitaxe on ckpooldev.
This isn’t even the first time David has slain Goliath in the mining world. In 2022, a miner with just 126 terahashes won $260,000. In 2021, an 86 TH/s device struck gold. Even a single ancient S9 miner hit the jackpot back in 2019.
Sometimes the little guy wins. Usually not. But when they do? It’s spectacular.
