Coin News Report:
Solo Performance
Bitcoin
Miners seem to have had a good year, despite the increasing difficulty of minting digital currency.
On Thursday, an individual miner managed to process a block on the largest cryptocurrency network, earning a total of 3.329 bitcoins as a reward, valued at $222,438.
Blockchain data
shows that the block contained 3,285 transactions and was processed at 4:18 am Eastern Time.
Bitcoin mining
is the energy-intensive process of processing blocks on the cryptocurrency network. Blocks are filled with transaction data and form part of the Bitcoin blockchain, which is an almost impenetrable ledger and one of the most secure computing networks on Earth.
When a block is processed, miners are rewarded with newly minted coins: a fixed reward of 3.125 BTC, as well as transaction fees paid by people using the network during a specific block window.
In the past, almost anyone could participate in the mining process and mint new coins at home. However, with the development of the network, mining difficulty has significantly increased. Mining operations are now typically carried out by large companies using warehouses and consuming vast amounts of electricity.
Bitcoin mining became even more difficult in April when the network underwent a once-every-four-years event known as
halving
. This event, embedded in the network’s code, halves the miner’s reward every four years.
Mining operations now have to work harder and earn fewer bitcoins. Prior to the halving event in April, miners received 6.25 bitcoins per processed block. Before that, the reward was 12.5 bitcoins, and before that, 25 BTC. When the Bitcoin blockchain was first launched in 2009, mining rewards were 50 bitcoins.
Although miners receive fewer bitcoins every four years, they are able to sustain their operations and stay in the game because the value of cryptocurrencies has flourished since the network’s inception. Since the first halving of Bitcoin in 2012, the price of Bitcoin has increased by 548,604%, currently valued at around $67,650.
However, independent miners do exist, and occasionally – though rarely – they may get lucky and process a block themselves.
So far this year, solo miners have had their personal victories on Thursdays in April, July, August, and September.
Editor
Andrew Hayward
