An independent miner using Braiins Solo found Bitcoin block 966351 on Thursday and received the full 3.147 BTC payout, including the block subsidy and transaction fees, worth approximately $244,000 to $244,900. The win ended nearly 40 days without a solo-mined block after Solo CKPool found block 960804 on Aug. 2. Solo mining allows an individual miner or small operator to pursue a block independently rather than divide rewards through a conventional pool, making payouts less frequent but potentially much larger. Foundry, Antpool, F2pool, ViaBTC and Spiderpool together control 78.31% of Bitcoin’s hashrate, underscoring the odds facing smaller miners. Braiins Solo and Solo CKPool provide infrastructure such as Stratum servers, block-template construction and chain-tip tracking, while miners supply their own hash power and retain the reward if they find a block.