A solitary Bitcoin miner has recently achieved a remarkable feat by independently solving a BTC block and earning a reward of 3.275 BTC, which is valued at approximately $200,000. The accomplishment was announced by Con Kolivas, a software engineer and administrator of the solo mining pool ckpool, who shared the news on X platform. The miner, identified as 36AisvWi1UiwLTeTZxLzindAkorqeUc3tT, successfully solved the 291st solo block in Bitcoin’s history. Kolivas congratulated the miner for their achievement, highlighting that their mining power of 38PH allowed them to solve a block, on average, once every four months.
The blockchain data confirms that the miner mined block number 858,978 on the Bitcoin blockchain, which consisted of 2,391 transactions. This significant milestone comes at a time when concerns about the centralization of Bitcoin mining are on the rise within the community. Recent data from BTC.com reveals that four mining pools—Foundry USA, AntPool, ViaBTC, and F2Pool—have collectively produced around 80% of Bitcoin blocks over the past three days, sparking concerns among community members.
Foundry USA and AntPool alone accounted for more than half of the blocks mined by these pools, raising alarms about the centralization of mining power. Jameson Lopp, co-founder of CasaHODL, expressed his views on the issue, emphasizing that Bitcoin mining centralization poses a dilemma between economies of scale and the decentralized nature of energy sources. Despite the challenges, Lopp remains optimistic that decentralization will ultimately prevail.
The risks associated with mining centralization have been further exacerbated by the recent halving event, which reduced block mining rewards by half. This development has led to the exit of many smaller miners from the market, paving the way for publicly traded mining companies to dominate the industry. Bitfinex has cautioned against the concentration of mining power, warning that it could potentially result in transaction censorship, increased vulnerability to coordinated attacks, or regulatory pressures.
The firm emphasized that such centralization risks are contrary to Bitcoin’s ethos and could undermine its decentralized nature. As the debate on mining centralization continues, it remains imperative for the Bitcoin community to address these concerns and work towards ensuring a more decentralized and secure network for the future.