I'm often surprised by the reception I get to telling relatively old stories of bitcoin mining but I have to keep reminding myself how dynamic and ever-changing the landscape and audience is that has zero knowledge of the past.
The bitcoin audience lifecycle seems to be only about 18 months old, with a fresh batch of bright eyed enthusiastic people who are getting their information purely from social media these days. I also see the same kind of arguments rehashed on a regular basis as has been since day one - each debate being seen as some kind of existential threat when the vast majority of them are almost always a storm in a teacup.
The good thing is it's a sign there's always new bitcoiners in the space. The bad thing is the longer we're in the space, the less energy we have for arguing what we see as trivialities. Many of us (me included) have had painful interactions along the way which also makes us take a much more hands-off approach and/or lose enthusiasm for intense development on a scale we once did. Just remember that silence is not a sign we accept that we have lost a debate.
It's the two-edged sword of a truly consensus based protocol, but ultimately is a superpower since nothing ever progresses without endless debate, and leads to the best result for bitcoin.
Dr -ck
ckolivas@iris.to
npub1q0k5...7wtf
Bitcoin's cgminer,ckpool,admin of http://solo.ckpool.org,-ck kernel,Anaesthetist,Japanese translator,HiFi,astronomy,nutrition,anime geek
It's now been just over 15 years since I first contributed patches to cpuminer as my entry into the bitcoin world. What a ride it's been, and it still feels like we're just getting started.
Congratulations to miner bc1qyj7x3d64znz2jdn28k0fxl8pq4q39a3ke79sj3 with 2.3PH for solving block number 301 on the EU http://solo.ckpool.org!
A miner of this size has about a 1 in 2800 chance of solving a block every day, or once every 8 years on average.


The Mempool Open Source Project®
Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.
A block party aiming for a combined total hashrate of 7EH on solo.ckpool.org is planned for this Saturday the 5th. It's being coordinated here https://upendo.rigly.io/
Bitcoin mining difficulty had its biggest drop in a very long time of 7.5% to ~117T. Still insanely high but won't last and will no doubt return to the same level as previously once the weather in Texas becomes inclement. It will also take less time to return to its former self.
Saturn captured on 2025-06-10 UTC. The rings are now just barely visible.


If it wasn't clear, I will continue to run core relay/mempool rules on the solo pools as I always have for all the technical reasons already outlined in a myriad of other places.
By all means feel free to run whatever client you feel is appropriate or mine wherever you like, but I implore you to read arguments instead of listening to them for the person delivering verbal messages can have more influence on your decision making than it can in text.
Saturn captured 2025-05-18.


Saturn captured this morning 2025-05-12. I've added a version with gamma applied which makes the very thin rings visible.


This is a great new multisig hardware wallet device one of the local bitdevs in our meetup has been working on and is coming out soon. Uses taproot and allows dynamic adding and removing signatures.


Frostsnap - Bitcoin Security
Take Bitcoin Saving Seriously.

Congratulations to miner bc1~nnc5 with ~230TH for solving the 299th solo block mined at http://solo.ckpool.org! A miner of this size has about a 1 in 30,000 chance of finding a block each day.


The Mempool Open Source Project®
Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.
Congratulations to miner bc1qq926qlrhc2pvxzc5f0zswnvqqddqqj3tz2amla with a sizeable 2.5PH/s for solving the first EU solo block and the 298th block at solo.ckpool.org!
A miner of this size has about a one in 2,000 chance if finding a block per day.

The Mempool Open Source Project®
Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.
Congratulations to a super lucky miner bc1qaxccz85rx6ywy2xw6ugtm6u37mvew6qqn7lgtd with only 3.3TH who solved the 297th solo block at with a 480GH bitaxe!
A miner of this size has only less than a 1 in a million chance of finding a block per day, or put alternatively, would take 3500 years to find a block on average.
Solo CKPool - Anonymous Bitcoin Mining

The Mempool Open Source Project®
Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.
Re: http://eusolo.ckpool.org, sadly the anonymous individual who offered to fund the server's running has retracted their offer. This & the stats incident has confirmed my belief I should not rely on others. I will likely now fund it myself but will need to migrate the service.
Prove to me you don't understand why bitcoin and not shitcoins without saying you don't understand bitcoin...


Three people came to me this week asking for orange pills.
The EU solo ckpool is up and running! Connect to the pool via instructions at Graphical stats available at Miners in Europe and Africa are encouraged to move to the new pool. Miners in The Americas and Asia-Pacific should still use but the sister pool can be used as backup.
This is an entirely separate pool from and neither shares nor stats are shared across instances for overhead reasons. They only help propagate each others' blocks. Both will solve blocks with the same coinbase signature though.
EU Solo CKPool - Anonymous Bitcoin Mining
CKstats
Real-time and historical statistics for the CKPool Bitcoin mining pool using data from their API.
Solo CKPool - Anonymous Bitcoin Mining
Solo CKPool - Anonymous Bitcoin Mining
Here's a little podcast I did with bitcoin mining world.
I've tentatively set up a new stats site courtesy of MrV_777 for trial. I'm personally hosting this one, but I've left his donation link intact since he did the work. Some other web devs are also working on alternatives, so do not assume this is the final form but please test it out. I may be hosting multiple in the future whilst testing them out.
Http only for now:
CKstats
Real-time and historical statistics for the CKPool Bitcoin mining pool using data from their API.
Saturn captured in excellent conditions 2024-09-27

