Did a $400 Bitcoin Mining Rig Really Just Mine a $330K Reward? Not Exactly

It’s what every Bitcoiner dreams of: buying a cheap hobby miner, processing a block with little effort (or energy), and taking home the jackpot. 

And that’s what initially appeared to happen this week, when journalist Pete Rizzo flagged on X (formerly Twitter) that a solo miner using just a cheap home machine (valued at about $400) managed to mine a block and take home a reward of 3.125 Bitcoin—worth almost $330,000 at today’s prices. 

But the reality is perhaps a bit more complicated than appears, as Rizzo explained: A solo operation did indeed use a small FutureBit mining machine—but it also received an additional hashrate boost from elsewhere.

“Someone donated hashpower to a home miner, so they could use the reward to fund open-source projects,” wrote Rizzo. 

Simply put, Bitcoin nonprofit The 256 Foundation on Wednesday used the $400 machine and asked miners to send hashrate to their self-hosted pool in order to see if they could mine a block. 

And after around 10 hours, they did.

“We opted to have supporters send their hashrate to our self-hosted pool running on a FutureBit Apollo, like psychopaths,” wrote pseudonymous Bitcoin enthusiast Econoalchemist on X. “And we actually solved a block.” 

He added that the Bitcoin reward would be used to support The 256 Foundation, which works to “dismantle the proprietary mining empire to make Bitcoin and freedom tech accessible to anyone.”

Bitcoin miners are needed to process blocks on the Bitcoin network. Blocks are full of transaction data and are part of the cryptocurrency’s impenetrable, immutable ledger—also known as a blockchain.

When blocks are processed, miners are rewarded with newly minted Bitcoins. Back in the day, when Bitcoin was worth a lot less and fewer people knew about and used the network, one could reasonably mine the cryptocurrency on a home computer.

But as the Bitcoin network has grown in size, it has become harder to mine the digital coins, and miners today are typically large operations run by companies that have warehouses full of specialized computers and technicians. They use a lot of electricity and resources to take part in the network.

Still, a single operator can still get lucky and process a block at home with a mining machine—though it’s very rare. 

Nonprofits like The 256 Foundation are working to push for more independent miners to take part in the network. And even the major players who run such massive mining operations are keen on seeing solo miners enter the fray.

Compass Mining Chief Revenue Officer CJ Burnett told Decrypt Thursday that home mining with small home mining rigs is “a great, tangible way to participate in the Bitcoin network”—despite the chances of mining a block being very slim. 

“The fun part of home mining is the chance, albeit astronomically small, that you can win the mining lottery and enjoy the block reward,” he added.

Edited by Andrew Hayward