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

The persistent speculation surrounding ‘untagged’ Bitcoin blocks, often dubbed the ‘Bitcoin lottery myth,’ suggests that large, unknown entities are secretly mining blocks without attribution. These blocks, which lack the standard identifying tags (coinbase tags) usually associated with major mining pools like F2Pool or AntPool, frequently ignite rumors of highly successful solo miners or undisclosed institutional operations.

NiceHash, the world’s leading hashpower marketplace, has stepped forward to provide crucial clarification, substantially debunking the sensationalized elements of this myth. NiceHash confirmed that a significant percentage of these blocks originate from hashpower rented through its platform, thereby confirming legitimate block generation while explaining the technical reason for the missing identifiers.

NiceHash’s operational model is key to understanding the issue. NiceHash is not a traditional mining pool that mines blocks under its own banner. Instead, it acts as an intermediary, facilitating the renting of hashpower from sellers (individual miners) to buyers (who direct the power to an endpoint of their choice).

When hashpower is rented via NiceHash, the buyer directs that power to a specific target—usually an external mining pool or a private stratum server. The resulting coinbase tag is determined by the configuration of the *buyer’s chosen destination*, not by NiceHash itself. If the buyer directs the power to a pool that fails to properly set the extranonce field, or if they are running a custom solo mining setup configured without a visible tag, the resulting block appears ‘untagged’ on blockchain explorers.

Therefore, while the blocks appear anonymous, they are the result of transparent transactions on the NiceHash marketplace. The missing identification is a technical consequence of the hashpower destination’s configuration rather than evidence of a massive, hidden mining operation striking gold randomly. NiceHash’s clarification moves the narrative away from speculative ‘lottery’ winnings and towards technical reality within the distributed mining ecosystem.

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