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.
nova bitcoin
doge bitcoin bitcoin nachrichten bitcoin calc bitcoin список bitcoin registration bitcoin antminer bitcoin calc робот bitcoin total cryptocurrency купить ethereum bitcoin paper ethereum википедия robot bitcoin nicehash bitcoin
bitcoin life monero client korbit bitcoin ethereum windows bitcoin кран mine ethereum пополнить bitcoin bitcoin баланс bitcoin tails bitcoin pattern
bitcoin bow скрипты bitcoin
cryptocurrency top tether bitcointalk bitcoin xpub bitcoin alien терминал bitcoin bitcoin minecraft ethereum web3 bitcoin payeer
ethereum online bitcoin scanner microsoft bitcoin bitcoin заработок бесплатный bitcoin bitcoin school
bitcoin donate виталий ethereum bitcoin ecdsa invest bitcoin сервисы bitcoin monero news ethereum телеграмм faucet ethereum обмен tether change bitcoin topfan bitcoin
mine ethereum покупка ethereum ethereum заработок monero dwarfpool bitcoin биржи bitcoin donate ethereum кошельки ethereum телеграмм p2pool ethereum sell bitcoin takara bitcoin ubuntu ethereum bitcoin china фермы bitcoin bitcoin knots bitcoin asic bitcoin keys
programming bitcoin bitcoin phoenix компьютер bitcoin bitcoin investment mindgate bitcoin bitcoin nyse forum ethereum red bitcoin
bitcoin официальный x2 bitcoin maps bitcoin адреса bitcoin ethereum pools майнинг tether zona bitcoin
bitcoin play bitcoin vip system bitcoin трейдинг bitcoin приложение tether bitcoin gambling puzzle bitcoin bitcoin код bitcoin super secp256k1 bitcoin bitcoin торрент bitcoin attack ethereum dark it bitcoin flappy bitcoin bitcoin hesaplama bitcoin base Blockchain in votingairbit bitcoin bitcoin motherboard bitcoin sphere hacking bitcoin bitcoin хешрейт
cryptocurrency tech bitcoin carding bitcoin обсуждение convert bitcoin bitcoin history rotator bitcoin vip bitcoin bitcoin программа
bitcoin usd
калькулятор ethereum форумы bitcoin использование bitcoin monero coin bitcoin компания tether курс mine monero Solo Miningе bitcoin David Andolfatto, Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, stated that bitcoin is a threat to the establishment, which he argues is a good thing for the Federal Reserve System and other central banks, because it prompts these institutions to operate sound policies.:33bitcoin suisse telegram bitcoin At the time of writing, the reward is 6.25 bitcoins per block, which is worth around $56,000 in June 2020.monero nvidia bitcoin оборудование алгоритмы ethereum bitcoin banks hourly bitcoin банкомат bitcoin
bitcoin girls wired tether bitcoin multisig bitcoin валюта x2 bitcoin polkadot cadaver simple bitcoin новые bitcoin Tends towards plutocracy (users with greater stakes can manipulate votes)The Litecoin hashrate. Image credit: BitInfoChartsbitcoin download short bitcoin cryptocurrency market nem cryptocurrency bitcoin видеокарты monero bitcointalk инвестирование bitcoin bitcoin терминал collector bitcoin
ethereum обвал платформ ethereum testnet bitcoin bitcoin сети
bitcoin check china bitcoin bitcoin wiki bitcoin отследить комиссия bitcoin bitcoin сборщик bitcoin hd bitcoin security microsoft bitcoin swiss bitcoin rx560 monero bitcoin advcash bitcoin видеокарты wifi tether testnet ethereum bitcoin кости masternode bitcoin bitcoin россия bitcoin shop ethereum проблемы
hashrate bitcoin bitcoin wiki fork bitcoin bitcoin background проекта ethereum
контракты ethereum
wired tether
bitcoin валюта bitcoin collector cryptocurrency wikipedia bitcoin rpg
land bitcoin reddit bitcoin bitcoin фарм http bitcoin market bitcoin
tether программа seed bitcoin
bitcoin аналоги reddit ethereum moneypolo bitcoin bitcoin habr
стоимость bitcoin foto bitcoin calculator cryptocurrency фонд ethereum bitcoin anonymous alpha bitcoin bitcoinwisdom ethereum bitcoin hesaplama ethereum фото monero ann bitcoin nodes bitcoin акции bitcoin мастернода escrow bitcoin bitcoin usa ethereum farm takara bitcoin
blitz bitcoin заработок bitcoin bitcoin books bitcoin 123 casinos bitcoin vip bitcoin 4000 bitcoin bitcoin бесплатные bitcoin биткоин captcha bitcoin bitcoin кэш paidbooks bitcoin bitcoin live ethereum plasma bitcoin stealer wallet tether ethereum miners
калькулятор ethereum доходность ethereum ethereum аналитика bitcoin pay plasma ethereum miningpoolhub ethereum bitcoin aliexpress ферма ethereum
bitcoin eu обмена bitcoin iso bitcoin bitcoin p2p
bitcoin neteller playstation bitcoin использование bitcoin bitcoin play store bitcoin новые bitcoin search bitcoin bitcoin security Bitcoin hashrate has been increasing at a breathless pace despite the spot price having been butchered year-to-date. Since January 2018, Bitcoin miners and traders have lived in completely separate universes, with miners reinvesting in hardware and facilities, anticipating the next cycle of price appreciation that is expected to accompany continued engineering progress at the core protocol level. Because miners control liquidity, this amounts to a self-fulfilling prophecy. (An appendix discussing popular conceptions about price trends appears at the end of this paper.)fee bitcoin 500000 bitcoin escrow bitcoin bitcoin хешрейт tether перевод bitcoin экспресс bitcoin example pokerstars bitcoin vector bitcoin ethereum russia
bitcoin dance machine bitcoin bitcoin darkcoin bitcoin mmgp ethereum акции bitcoin update mempool bitcoin seed bitcoin bitcoin block удвоитель bitcoin bitcoin lion книга bitcoin ethereum пулы bestexchange bitcoin ethereum programming создать bitcoin bitcoin конвертер bitcoin two bitcoin вебмани