Behind the ‘Bitcoin lottery’ myth: NiceHash clarifies untagged BTC blocks

3 weeks ago

Social media buzzed this week aft Bitcoin blocks 932129 and 932167 were mined without an instantly disposable excavation tag, prompting speculation that a solo miner had struck it rich, a acquainted “Bitcoin lottery” communicative that concisely captured the market’s attention.

The excitement, however, had little to bash with the blocks themselves than with what their evident mislabeling revealed astir however Bitcoin mining attribution works. It besides revealed however rapidly assumptions tin instrumentality hold.

Amid the speculation, NiceHash emerged arsenic the miner down some blocks. NiceHash operates a hashrate marketplace that connects miners with buyers of computing power, alternatively than moving a accepted mining pool.

Because the blocks initially appeared untagged connected mempool explorers, galore observers assumed they had been mined independently by a solo miner. In reality, some blocks were mined by NiceHash arsenic portion of interior investigating for a forthcoming product, the institution confirmed.

In exclusive comments to Cointelegraph, Sasa Coh, CEO of NiceHash AG, said the misunderstanding stemmed from however artifact metadata was displayed alternatively than from immoderate effort to obscure attribution.

“The misconception present is lone that the blocks were not labeled by mempool, though they were tagged with NiceHashMining,” Coh said. “We did not privation to disturbance up immoderate speculation.”

Coh confirmed that the blocks were mined during interior investigating tied to a caller product, though helium declined to stock method details up of its launch.

“We cannot disclose immoderate details yet, but we are moving connected a caller acceptable of products that are going to supply a afloat suite of functionalities connected apical of the existing marketplace,” helium said.

Block tags are metadata, not protocol guarantees. When a acquainted tag doesn’t appear, the marketplace tin rapidly leap to incorrect conclusions. This occurrence underscores however overmuch Bitcoin communicative enactment inactive depends connected assumptions alternatively than verifiable onchain signals.

Solo mining is inactive possible, but not typical

The little “lucky miner” communicative besides reignited treatment astir solo mining, a setup successful which an idiosyncratic miner works independently alternatively than contributing hashpower to a pool. While solo miners person the afloat artifact reward if successful, payouts are highly unpredictable owed to the probabilistic quality of mining.

“Solo mining is possible, and it provides a batch of fun,” Coh said. “Easy Mining astatine Nicehash was progressive successful 17 retired of the full 36 mined solo blocks successful 2025.”

Institutional mining operations, however, cannot trust connected chance, helium added. These companies typically run large-scale infrastructure and employment precocious strategies designed to trim variance and make much predictable gross streams.

Institutional Bitcoin mining has go increasingly challenging with each halving cycle, squeezing margins and pressuring profitability, portion pushing operators to diversify gross streams into areas specified arsenic artificial quality and high-performance computing.

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