A solo miner operating FutureBit's Apollo hardware found Bitcoin block 973,262, earning the complete block reward of 3.154 BTC plus fees from 2,477 transactions. Block explorers including mempool.space list the finder as "FutureBit Apollo Solo," with the coinbase transaction referencing FutureBit and Apollo.
According to FutureBit, an Apollo device or Solo Node running the company's built-in solo pool assembled the block template, served the work, and submitted the completed block to the network. The exact hardware model or hashrate that produced the winning hash is not publicly identified, though the block could have originated from an Apollo BTC, Apollo II, Apollo III, or other compatible machines pointed at a Solo Node.
This find represents at least the fourth block attributed to FutureBit Apollo Solo, following earlier discoveries of blocks 867,760, 881,423, and 888,737. FutureBit designs its Apollo hardware for operators seeking to run a full Bitcoin node and mine independently from home rather than through commercial pools. The Apollo III, the company's most recent model, is rated for up to 18 TH/s in turbo mode with an integrated full node.
Solo mining remains uncommon against the current network hashrate of approximately 1,070–1,087 EH/s. Home-scale setups in the 10–18 TH/s range face expected times to a block measured in centuries under current difficulty levels, yet verified solo finds continue to appear on the blockchain. Another solo block was found the following day via CKPool Solo, demonstrating that individual operators can still capture full rewards despite industrial pools producing the majority of blocks.
For users running FutureBit hardware, the company notes that individual operators control both the node and solo pool, retaining the full reward when a block is found. Solo mining also provides privacy benefits, and hardware and energy costs can be written off against taxes in some jurisdictions.
Bitcoin's original design intended full nodes to participate in block mining, not merely validate and audit the blockchain. The rise of mining pools created a competitive industrial sector, though companies including FutureBit, Bitaxe, and HeatBit continue developing hardware designed to bring mining back to homes and individual users.
