Solo Bitcoin Miner Earns $200K Reward With a Tiny Bitaxe Device

A solo Bitcoin miner has beaten extraordinary odds, earning nearly $200,000 after successfully mining a full Bitcoin block with a compact Bitaxe device.

The lucky miner solved Bitcoin block 957,382, receiving a reward of 3.1382 BTC, despite operating a machine capable of only around 1 terahash per second (TH/s). The device had reportedly been connected to the Public Pool mining service for just eight hours before finding the winning block.

The achievement is especially remarkable because the Bitaxe is a small, open-source ASIC miner designed for hobbyists rather than industrial-scale operations. Roughly the size of a credit card, the device uses the same Bitmain BM1370 chip found in larger Antminer S21 mining systems but delivers only a fraction of their computing power while consuming between 15 and 21 watts of electricity. Depending on the model, a Bitaxe typically costs between $60 and $150.

The latest success also marks the second time a Bitaxe miner has independently solved a Bitcoin block while connected to Public Pool, highlighting that even low-powered equipment can occasionally secure a full block reward.

Although the chances remain extremely slim, solo mining has produced several notable wins this year. In late June, another individual miner using Solo CKPool earned approximately 3.16 BTC after mining a block independently. Earlier, at the end of May, a small mining setup consisting of 14 Canaan Nano devices, generating a combined 157 TH/s, also managed to discover a block through Braiins Solo.

So far in 2026, solo miners have successfully mined 12 Bitcoin blocks, continuing a trend of surprising victories. Over the past year, independent miners have collectively claimed 24 blocks, a 41% increase compared with the previous 12 months, earning a combined 75.44 BTC in rewards.

Despite these occasional windfalls, the wider Bitcoin mining sector continues to face financial challenges. Falling profitability has pushed several major mining companies to diversify beyond cryptocurrency, with many investing in AI data centers and high-performance computing infrastructure to generate new revenue streams.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin mining conditions have become slightly more favorable. Network mining difficulty fell 5% to 127.17 trillion on July 12, following a steeper decline of more than 10% in mid-June before rebounding. Lower mining difficulty improves the chances of discovering a block, although solo miners still face overwhelmingly long odds compared with large mining operations.