$150 Box for Solo Mining Takes on Global Hashrate, Mining $200,000

Two months ago, our viral report on a $300 second-hand mining machine that mined $230,000 worth of Bitcoin blocks garnered over 45,000 views.

It told the story of a Bitmain Avalon Nano 3S that mined block 951771 on May 30 this year, earning 3.14 BTC, approximately $230,000.

Many people asked whether this was luck or if ordinary people really had a chance.

This new story might just be the answer.

On July 10, a new block was produced at block height 957,382 on the Bitcoin network.

The reward of 3.1382 BTC, about $200,000, was attributed to an unfamiliar address.

There were no roaring factories, no billionaire mine owners.

Just a small box (Bitaxe, with a hashrate of about 1 TH/s and a power consumption of 15 watts) plugged into the wall, and an ordinary person who might still be asleep.

1. A Lottery with a 18,000-Year Wait

A device called Bitaxe Gamma 601, priced between $60 and $150, consumes 17 watts, similar to charging your laptop.

There is no company behind Bitaxe, no venture capital, only a global open-source community called OSMU maintaining it.

In short, this device is a product of collective effort from the open-source community.

What is available on the market is made by third-party manufacturers following open-source blueprints.

Its hashrate is about 1.2 TH/s, while the current total Bitcoin network hashrate is as high as 872 to 874 EH/s.

1 EH equals 1 million TH.

This small box accounts for only 0.00000014% of the total network hashrate.

If placed in a mining farm, the latest industrial miner S21 XP has a hashrate of 270 TH/s, making its performance 225 times that of the Bitaxe.

In the face of the total network hashrate, this is no longer an ant against an elephant; it’s an ant against an aircraft carrier fleet.

According to standard mining probability models, using this device to mine a block has an expected statistical duration of about 15,000 years (if conservatively calculated at 1.0 TH/s, it would be about 18,000 years).

But this is not without precedent.

Just two months ago, an ordinary person at home ran 14 devices (12 Bitmain Avalon Nano 3S and 2 Mini 3, with a total hashrate of about 147 TH/s) and mined block 951771 through the Braiins Solo pool, earning about $230,000.

At that time, the winning probability for a single Nano 3S was 1 in 149 million, which is on par with winning a lottery jackpot.

However, after the event, someone raised a very realistic question:

The rewards from solo mining are directly written into the blockchain and sent to your own wallet, so the platform cannot touch the money.

But if it’s a regular mining pool, your earnings are first held by the platform; will they default?

2. A Hashrate Game Without Middlemen

The lucky individual from two months ago used Braiins Solo.

Although the $230,000 went directly into his own wallet, the solo service does not have the issue of platform defaulting, but Braiins is still a commercial company with a closed-source backend.

In contrast, the Bitaxe owner who received $200,000 connected to a Public Pool.

This is an open-source, non-custodial solo mining pool.

Its most powerful feature is that all code is public, no account registration is required, and it charges no fees; 100% of what you mine goes directly into your wallet.

Bitcoin mining is mathematically absolutely fair.

There are no progress bars, no "it’s almost my turn"; if you don’t mine this second, the next second everyone’s probability remains the same.

Industrial mining farms buy trillions of "lottery tickets" every second, while retail miners buy trillions in the same timeframe; although the numbers are vastly different, the probability of winning for each "ticket" is exactly the same.

In the past, retail miners had to go through agents, who would take a cut and might even default.

But now, the Public Pool is like opening a free channel next to the lottery center.

It doesn’t even give the chance to default because there’s no intermediary ledger.

However, since the channel is free, why do the vast majority still choose to hand over their hashrate to large mining pools?

3. An Ant’s Self-Rescue Against an Aircraft Carrier Fleet

Because for ordinary people, waiting 18,000 years is too despairing.

To earn a bit of stable income every day, everyone has to hand their hashrate over to the giants.

This has led to a very realistic situation.

By 2026, giants like Foundry USA control about 26% of the total network hashrate, while AntPool holds about 18%.

Together, these two account for over 44%, meaning they have significant influence in this network, even deciding which transactions can be packed first.

This was originally an irreversible game of hashrate concentration, but that small box consuming less than 20 watts has forcibly opened a gap.

Although it has negligible hashrate, in the past 12 months, solo retail miners like it have found 24 blocks, a 41% increase from the previous year.

On average, every 15 days, an ordinary person turns the "impossible" into "already happened".

This cannot change the macro pattern of hashrate concentration, but it has confirmed the bottom line of this system with real money.

It proves that this network still allows one person, with a toy, to take away an entire cake without anyone’s permission.

That broken box plugged into the wall is still blinking at this very moment.

The rules written on paper in 2008 are still valid in 2026.

The small door it leaves behind, although outside is a cliff, still allows one to look up and see the starry sky.

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