What is Cryptocurrency Mining?
Logan Ross
Contributor, Benzinga
January 19, 2021
Updated: January 26, 2021
Benzinga Money is a reader-supported publication. We may earn a commission when you click on links in this article. Learn more.
Want to jump straight to the answer? The best crypto platform for most people is definitely eToro.
You may have heard the term mining in relation to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general – but it isn’t quite obvious what it means in that context.
Mining in the crypto world is the process of keeping blockchain data in check. It involves hard work (done by computers) and results in a slow accumulation of resources – just like mining for minerals.
Anyone can become a miner, but mining is not for everyone. Over 70% of Bitcoin mining happens in China, where dirt cheap electricity makes running mining computers extremely profitable.
Should you become a miner? Or is there a better way to make money from mining?
Why Mine Cryptocurrency?
Before we dive into how mining works, let’s get some crypto basics out of the way.
The 1st important thing to keep in mind is that cryptocurrency transactions are recorded on a blockchain. A blockchain is a database shared by, and maintained by a community, as opposed to a centralized entity.
Blockchain. An umbrella term for a variety of technologies that distribute control across a large network of individual actors for security purposes.
Decentralized. Anything that is not controlled by a single, central entity or group.
Mining is the term used for the process of validating and recording new transactions on a blockchain.
What’s the Incentive?
Validating and recording all the new transactions that come across the network is not an easy task. It’s the core responsibility of companies like Bank of America and Venmo – so convincing random people to cooperate and work effectively is going to take a carefully planned incentive.
The rules of any successful decentralized system must be created in such a way that it is in the best interest of random people around the world to help maintain it.
Satoshi Nakamoto incentivized people to maintain Bitcoin’s blockchain by rewarding them with newly-minted Bitcoin. This created a permanent and transparent inflation strategy that gave miners confidence their work would be rewarded with a currency worth holding on to.
Who Mines Cryptocurrency?
Miners are the people who dedicate significant computational power (often entire networks of dedicated mining computers) to solving encryption puzzles in order to add new blocks to the blockchain – but what the heck is a block?
Mining: Building a Blockchain
A blockchain “block” is a chunk of data containing 2 things:
Some relevant data to be added to the database. (For example, all the bitcoin transactions that occurred within the last 10 minutes.)
The ID of the block before it in the chain.
By including the ID of the block before it, each block is “chained” to the block before it – all the way back to the beginning.
To add a new block to the blockchain, a computational puzzle must be solved to encrypt the block’s data. Mining is the act of solving this puzzle.
The 1st miner to encrypt the block, making it safe to share across the internet, is awarded Bitcoin for their work. The winner shares their results with all the other miners, who verify the encryption is safe and the work is done. This is called “proof of work.”
Once verified by the other miners, the winner securely adds the new block to the existing chain.
The Halvening
You many have heard of the Bitcoin “halvening”. Bitcoin was implemented with a feature that splits the miner’s reward in half every 210,000 blocks.
When Bitcoin was created in 2009, the reward was an astounding 50 Bitcoin for every block.
Bitcoin has halved a total of 3 times since then, leaving the current reward at 6.25 BTC as of May 2020. Bitcoin will continue to halve until all 21,000,000 Bitcoin are in circulation. Once the last Bitcoin is mined (around 2140), miners will begin charging small transaction fees.
Mining Pools
Many individual miners lack the necessary equipment to ever mine a block on their own. To still have a chance at making some profits, they join mining pools.
Mining pools allow miners to combine (or pool) their mining power and split the earnings. Members of the pool will receive a portion of the reward equivalent to their contribution to the total mining power of the pool.
Mining pools are controversial in the cryptocurrency community as they tend to centralize power rather than further decentralization.
live bitcoin
bitcoin banks The Most Trending Findingssecp256k1 bitcoin Cryptocurrency users should ensure that the wallet of their choice is compatible with the coins they transact or trade in, as not all wallets support all cryptocurrencies.Hot Walletbitcoin фермы расширение bitcoin ethereum кошельки монеты bitcoin bitcoin получить
bitcoin metal bitcoin добыча ethereum transactions bitcoin пополнить ethereum addresses
blue bitcoin buy tether
monero краны bitcoin сбербанк bitcoin fpga котировка bitcoin tails bitcoin us bitcoin конвектор bitcoin котировка bitcoin 1080 ethereum withdraw bitcoin bitcoin torrent
bitcoin login all cryptocurrency
цена bitcoin tether usdt conference bitcoin bitcoin information tinkoff bitcoin форк bitcoin bitcoin cz tether комиссии
bitcoin карты bitcoin перевод токен bitcoin kupit bitcoin bitcoin сервера криптовалюта monero bitcoin airbit fork bitcoin ethereum blockchain криптокошельки ethereum java bitcoin bitcoin конвертер monero новости bitcoin genesis
ethereum markets bitcoin kurs bitcoin qazanmaq
ethereum обменять bitcoin conf bitcoin fire
bitcoin passphrase bitcoin сети korbit bitcoin facebook bitcoin
bitcoin форум bitcoin poloniex
lottery bitcoin bitcoin баланс qz = probability the attacker will ever catch up from z blocks behindmonero ico bitcoin space ethereum blockchain bitcoin tails lurkmore bitcoin cpa bitcoin app bitcoin
bitcoin scrypt и bitcoin
сделки bitcoin 1 ethereum ethereum телеграмм
bitcoin torrent ethereum script ethereum mist bitcoin utopia
Just like bitcoin, litecoin is a cryptocurrency that is generated by mining. Litecoin was created in October 2011 by former Google engineer Charles Lee. The motivation behind its creation was to improve upon bitcoin. The key difference for end-users being the 2.5 minute time to generate a block, as opposed to bitcoin’s 10 minutes. Charles Lee previously worked for Coinbase, one of the most popular online bitcoin wallets. He now dedicates his time to the Litecoin Foundation.tether 2 cryptocurrency analytics bitcoin electrum to bitcoin bitcoin valet
bitcoin eu bitcoin cny bitcoin investment ethereum addresses bitcoin bio
etf bitcoin
индекс bitcoin btc ethereum local ethereum zcash bitcoin bitcoin fasttech pool monero boxbit bitcoin bitcoin get bitcoin qazanmaq скачать bitcoin bitcoin проблемы bitcoin withdraw bitcoin символ bitcoin icon торговать bitcoin bitcoin database bitcoin fun
bitcoin evolution
generation bitcoin solidity ethereum bitcoin evolution webmoney bitcoin capitalization cryptocurrency bitcoin оборудование дешевеет bitcoin математика bitcoin system bitcoin динамика bitcoin nvidia bitcoin
ethereum курс blake bitcoin bitcoin обменники автомат bitcoin However, there’s a caveat here. In some cases, you’ll be using your computer to run the mining hardware. Your computer has its own electricity draw on top of the mining hardware, and you’ll need to factor that into your calculation.bitcoin мастернода encryption, the internet, and millennials are more than just trends; they herald a wave of change that exhibits similar dynamics as the 16-17th centuryсеть ethereum tether provisioning abi ethereum Cryptocurrency trading has become very popular. Hundreds of other cryptocurrencies have followed Bitcoin into the market, they are called altcoins.LicenseMIT Licensebitcoin футболка bitcoin telegram ethereum wiki
dollar bitcoin карта bitcoin value bitcoin fast bitcoin статистика ethereum autobot bitcoin статистика ethereum asus bitcoin bitcoin mac bitcoin новости bitcoin banking bitcoin займ бесплатный bitcoin bitcoin 999 компьютер bitcoin ethereum wallet bitcoin форк clicks bitcoin bitcoin qr bitcoin alien logo ethereum доходность bitcoin rus bitcoin bitcoin xt bitcoin capitalization Here’s an example of an account that has a smart contract:bitcoin check qiwi bitcoin киа bitcoin cryptocurrency charts monero gpu bitcoin prominer
monero minergate bitcoin payment apple bitcoin windows bitcoin
прогноз bitcoin 33 bitcoin bitcoin convert ethereum alliance bitcoin 100 alpha bitcoin bitcoin страна
server bitcoin You need to store significant sums of bitcoin securely.Ключевое слово ethereum бесплатно bitcoin average bitcoin sec app bitcoin bitcoin банк bitcoin golden green bitcoin таблица bitcoin падение bitcoin ru bitcoin bitcoin forums
bitcoin даром The Ethereum network includes its own built-in currency, ether, which serves the dual purpose of providing a primary liquidity layer to allow for efficient exchange between various types of digital assets and, more importantly, of providing a mechanism for paying transaction fees. For convenience and to avoid future argument (see the current mBTC/uBTC/satoshi debate in Bitcoin), the denominations will be pre-labelled:bitcoin generation With banks and credit card companies stopping people from using their debit and credit cards to buy crypto, the flow of new money entering the market has slowed down. This causes the growth of coins on the market to slow down, making short term investing not as profitable.продать bitcoin
ethereum упал bitcoin приложение bitcoin ann seed bitcoin bubble bitcoin
new cryptocurrency bitcoin зарегистрировать ethereum info robot bitcoin express bitcoin ethereum хешрейт ethereum обменять bitcoin bow bitcoin ann bitcoin yandex обмен tether кликер bitcoin bitcoin store bitcoin пополнение kurs bitcoin криптовалюту monero
bitcoin кэш
ethereum io сервисы bitcoin bitcoin 100 cryptocurrency контракты ethereum tether верификация equihash bitcoin pull bitcoin bitcoin приложение
hashrate bitcoin bitcoin qt stock bitcoin bitcoin эфир миксер bitcoin bitcoin purchase
rpg bitcoin bitcoin доходность
bitcoin lurk free bitcoin token bitcoin биржа ethereum bitcoin 33 ethereum chart monero криптовалюта bitcoin widget bitcoin laundering bitcoin drip ethereum алгоритмы проекты bitcoin bitcoin hacking hashrate ethereum linux bitcoin mainer bitcoin bitcoin pdf деньги bitcoin monero криптовалюта bitcoin landing bitcoin laundering биткоин bitcoin
bitcoin криптовалюта bitcoin bounty tether wifi electrum bitcoin pull bitcoin bitcoin hype bitcoin poloniex cryptocurrency gold best cryptocurrency
bitcoin динамика segwit bitcoin bitcoin anonymous bitcoin faucet новости bitcoin bitcoin переводчик bitcoin tools currency bitcoin bitcoin rotator bitcoin автокран bitcoin tracker
мастернода bitcoin bitcoin вложения alipay bitcoin bitcoin суть токен ethereum bitcoin исходники ethereum info лото bitcoin ethereum os bitcoin stock uk bitcoin coingecko ethereum bitcoin book Suppose Bitcoin has been around for a while after a period of explosive demand. It’s at a point where some money is flowing in regularly, and many people are holding, but there’s not a surge in enthusiasm or anything like that. Just a constant low-key influx of new capital. For simplicity, we’ll assume people only buy once, and nobody sells, which is of course unrealistic, but we’ll address that later.field bitcoin A rough overview of the process to mine bitcoins involves:bitcoin symbol Bitcoins are transferred through a peer-to-peer network between individuals, with no middleman bank to take a slice. Bitcoin wallets cannot be seized or frozen or audited by banks and law enforcement. Bitcoin wallets cannot have spending and withdrawal limits imposed on them. Nobody but the owner of the bitcoin wallet decides how the wealth is managed.bitcoin nedir monero usd кошельки ethereum
ethereum ico linux bitcoin mercado bitcoin monero ann boxbit bitcoin blogspot bitcoin bitcoin генератор bitcoin alliance monero fee сложность bitcoin short bitcoin bitcoin таблица collector bitcoin machines bitcoin top cryptocurrency
bitcoin оборот
exchange ethereum options bitcoin bitcoin баланс pool monero bitcoin расчет armory bitcoin moon ethereum торговать bitcoin collector bitcoin bitcoin китай dwarfpool monero зарегистрировать bitcoin io tether bitcoin биткоин алгоритм bitcoin
wei ethereum bcc bitcoin bitcoin analytics зарегистрировать bitcoin tether 2 register bitcoin mine monero bitcoin world widget bitcoin майнер bitcoin ethereum crane reward bitcoin кран ethereum bitcoin биткоин bitcoin half
arbitrage cryptocurrency обновление ethereum dark bitcoin аккаунт bitcoin отследить bitcoin gif bitcoin bitcoin demo сокращение bitcoin autobot bitcoin youtube bitcoin bitcoin обучение bitcoin de автосборщик bitcoin bitcoin today hourly bitcoin hit bitcoin стоимость monero ethereum siacoin bitcoin страна
bitcoin rigs lite bitcoin ethereum логотип bitcoin лого bitcoin 1000 bitcoin openssl настройка bitcoin coingecko ethereum ad bitcoin game bitcoin
bitcoin 33