Is Solo Mining Still Viable?

With difficulty hitting new peaks, does solo mining with ASICs even make sense anymore? Anyone here managed to solo mine a block in the past year?

If you check out recent blocks, you'll spot a few mined by unknown miners. Those aren't from pools, just solo efforts. Pretty rare, but it still happens.

If by 'make sense' you mean earning money consistently, then nah, it hasn’t been worth it since folks started using GPUs for BTC mining over a decade ago.

That block you mentioned has a coinbase tag that points to Luxor Pool. Seems like not all unknown miners are solo miners after all.

So all these unknowns don’t mean they’re solo. Good to know. Let me dig up another recent example. What about block 883181? Mined just two days ago. Pretty sure a solo miner got that one.

Block 883181's address shows it's been solved 10 times since November 2023. Either a really lucky solo miner or just another pool at work.

Even if a ckpool instance is noted, doesn’t guarantee a solo miner found it... That coinbase address could mean someone’s running a mini farm or feeding bought hash power.

The link I shared has different coinbase tags for solo ckpool miners. It’s easy to spot.

Came close myself, recently did 22.87t. But if we’re being real, my 48th hit had only a.3% shot at that solo block this year.

Still worth trying, I’d say. Just don’t go big with power draw. Better to use smaller machines, they won’t cost much in electricity.

Totally agree. Just saw a recent solo block mined by a 0.5 TH/s miner. Check it on mempool.space with 'solo' in the search.

Lucky break for that solo miner on the 21st. Check it in the Apollo thread.

Finding an accurate answer is tough. Even long-time solo miners sometimes don’t hit blocks. It's a gamble. You might get a solo hit faster than someone grinding for months.