Mysterious Miner Infiltrates Bitcoin Network, Bags $1.7M Within Hours: What's Going On?

Bitcoin BTC/USD, the world’s largest cryptocurrency network appears to have been infiltrated by an unidentified miner.

What Happened: A Twitter user ‘tulkoo' was the first to point out the new player in Bitcoin mining.

In the past 24 hours, this entity has mined several blocks, earning more than 6.25 BTC per successful block. What is surprising is that the miner’s true identity is unknown, eluding established mining pools such as Binance Pool, AntPool, etc.

According to the screenshot shared by the Twitter user, the unknown miner has verified over 10 Bitcoin blocks in the last day, with a total of over 65 BTC worth over $1.7 million at current prices.

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Why It Matters: In the world of Bitcoin and other proof-of-work blockchain networks, individual retail miners often collaborate and join forces by combining their computing power, which is known as hash rate, in a process called “pooling.”

This approach allows them to increase their chances of validating a block of BTC transactions, and in return, the network rewards them with the block’s rewards, which typically consist of 6.25 BTC coins, plus transaction fees associated with the block. In some instances, transaction fees from a single block can even surpass 50% of the block reward from the network protocol level.

As the number of miners joining the Bitcoin network continues to grow, mining pools have become the dominant way of validation. However, there are different pools tailored to meet the specific needs of various miners. These include solutions designed for fees, reliability, and hash rate size, which significantly affect a pool’s reputation.

Price Action: At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $26,238.65, down 1.44% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.

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