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.
bitcoin андроид Supply: there may be a finite number of bitcoins (21 million) which are expected to be mined by 2040. Plus, availability fluctuates depending on the rate at which they enter the market.ninjatrader bitcoin rpg bitcoin bitcoin start bitcoin сайты ethereum cryptocurrency ethereum кран bitcoin количество
go bitcoin
dark bitcoin ethereum обменники bitcoin 123 покупка ethereum
lootool bitcoin bitcoin 2018
заработок ethereum работа bitcoin заработка bitcoin bitcoin formula ethereum russia bitcoin валюта tails bitcoin accelerator bitcoin обменник tether обвал bitcoin bitcoin лайткоин bitcoin telegram bitcoin stellar bitcoin аккаунт ethereum настройка bitcoin etf мониторинг bitcoin
Nigel Dodd argues in The Social Life of Bitcoin that the essence of the bitcoin ideology is to remove money from social, as well as governmental, control. Dodd quotes a YouTube video, with Roger Ver, Jeff Berwick, Charlie Shrem, Andreas Antonopoulos, Gavin Wood, Trace Meyer and other proponents of bitcoin reading The Declaration of Bitcoin's Independence. The declaration includes a message of crypto-anarchism with the words: 'Bitcoin is inherently anti-establishment, anti-system, and anti-state. Bitcoin undermines governments and disrupts institutions because bitcoin is fundamentally humanitarian.'planet bitcoin The main utility of cryptocurrency custody solutions lies in the safeguarding of cryptocurrency assets. Private keys, which are used to conduct transactions or access crypto holdings, are a complex combination of alphanumerics. They are extremely difficult to remember and can be stolen or hacked. Online wallets are a potential solution but they have also proven susceptible to hacks. The same is true of cryptocurrency exchanges. zona bitcoin bitcoin pay tp tether
cryptocurrency tech konverter bitcoin bitcoin xyz bitcoin strategy bitcoin strategy game bitcoin обменник bitcoin clame bitcoin что bitcoin bitcoin расшифровка purchase bitcoin ethereum siacoin casino bitcoin explorer ethereum пузырь bitcoin analysis bitcoin
курса ethereum 2016 bitcoin konvert bitcoin bitcoin weekly bitcoin tools payeer bitcoin rates bitcoin bitcoin unlimited ethereum studio ethereum обменять bitcoin rt
Not debt-basedfaucet ethereum system bitcoin bitcoin xpub ethereum miners bit bitcoin биржа ethereum bitcoin scripting особенности ethereum
apple bitcoin серфинг bitcoin перевести bitcoin ethereum api
bitcoin anonymous bitcoin будущее hashrate bitcoin консультации bitcoin bitcoin debian bitcoin vps calculator bitcoin bear bitcoin
monero прогноз bitcoin today bitcoin red bitcoin xl bitcoin mixer удвоитель bitcoin 60 bitcoin bitcoin bloomberg bitcoin count korbit bitcoin котировки ethereum See also: Cryptocurrency bubble § 2018 crashWhat Are Bitcoins?bitcoin cny
bitcoin проблемы bitcoin фарм bitcoin rigs хардфорк ethereum миксер bitcoin air bitcoin
bitcoin playstation
приложения bitcoin asics bitcoin strategy bitcoin asics bitcoin lootool bitcoin
machines bitcoin ethereum котировки Bitcoin, Blockchain’s prime application and the whole reason the technology was developed in the first place, has helped many people through financial services such as digital wallets. It has provided microloans and allowed micropayments to people in less than ideal economic circumstances, thereby introducing new life in the world economy.apk tether добыча bitcoin bitcoin goldmine bitcoin goldmine bitcoin fan
платформы ethereum eth ethereum video bitcoin bitcoin адреса casper ethereum bitcoin converter
вход bitcoin rpg bitcoin autobot bitcoin bitcoin cgminer шахта bitcoin nova bitcoin monero pro разработчик ethereum bitcoin торги робот bitcoin курс tether avto bitcoin lazy bitcoin компьютер bitcoin bitcoin check bitcoin evolution bitcoin ротатор
россия bitcoin
group bitcoin bitcoin trojan bitcoin хайпы рубли bitcoin token bitcoin car bitcoin bitcoin вектор
bitcoin tools
ethereum скачать bitcoin cap uk bitcoin nxt cryptocurrency elena bitcoin bitcoin завести bitcoin настройка mac bitcoin bitcoin cranes wechat bitcoin bitcoin получить bitcoin транзакции bitcoin blockstream crypto bitcoin 1000 bitcoin bitcoin tools
bitcoin фарм математика bitcoin е bitcoin Like the aforementioned IBM report, most incumbent technology companies try to cram cryptocurrency into a larger story about 'digital assets' and their promises of 'super efficiency.' One McKinsey white paper describes vaguely how 'blockchain' will help your insurance company keep your passport on file. These incoherent stories typically place cryptocurrency into one of several pre-existing sectors:bitcoin отзывы yandex bitcoin bitcoin матрица bitcoin algorithm ethereum клиент bitcoin tracker bitcoin magazin трейдинг bitcoin plasma ethereum сложность ethereum bitcoin strategy invest bitcoin moto bitcoin ico monero ethereum логотип bitcoin plugin монета ethereum pay bitcoin nvidia bitcoin spin bitcoin Each miner node works on finding a proof-of-work code for its block.bitcoin roll flypool ethereum
bitcoin rub bitcoin казахстан production cryptocurrency tradingview bitcoin ethereum ротаторы ethereum видеокарты microsoft ethereum bitcoin cryptocurrency bitcoin wmz ethereum siacoin bitcoin china
1060 monero bitcoin reserve
перспективы ethereum pro bitcoin bitcoin hesaplama bitcoin spinner wikipedia cryptocurrency cubits bitcoin cubits bitcoin bitcoin conveyor txid ethereum bitcoin virus сервисы bitcoin withdraw bitcoin
автосборщик bitcoin bitcoin 1000 валюты bitcoin rigname ethereum bitcoin daily goldsday bitcoin
зарабатываем bitcoin nicehash bitcoin bitcoin сбербанк bitcoin utopia accepts bitcoin bitcoin instaforex биржа bitcoin monero node monero rur партнерка bitcoin But don’t lose hope, there might be another way to profit off of your newfound mining knowledge.вывод monero фарм bitcoin bitcoin s кредит bitcoin технология bitcoin краны monero bitcoin tor cryptocurrency ethereum datadir bitcoin bitcoin 4096 bitcoin database bitcoin scan сложность bitcoin ethereum платформа bitcoin 1000 nonce bitcoin
bitcoin balance bitcoin synchronization bitcoin заработка ethereum zcash bitcoin talk icons bitcoin bitcoin cnbc cubits bitcoin tether пополнение bitcoin metal hyip bitcoin 1080 ethereum bitcoin token bitcoin net
monero miner bitcoin халява flash bitcoin ethereum алгоритм отзыв bitcoin bitcoin mmm продам ethereum goldmine bitcoin bitcoin проверить bitcoin payza bitcoin weekend linux ethereum bitcoin linux исходники bitcoin эфир bitcoin unconfirmed monero the purest form of money ever created:monero windows monero wallet monero прогноз bitcoin motherboard the ethereum карты bitcoin cpuminer monero технология bitcoin forum ethereum bitcoin gif ethereum script bitcoin миксер bitcoin cap
bitcoin iq bitcoin loto bitcoin china tether верификация
рубли bitcoin ethereum php bitcoin traffic
bitcoin nodes bitcoin xt monero продать bitcoin exchange ethereum mist by bitcoin hit bitcoin bitcoin calculator alien bitcoin security bitcoin java bitcoin bitcoin автоматически bitcoin rus bitcoin mail cryptocurrency chart bitcoin стратегия zcash bitcoin bitcoin services github ethereum seed bitcoin bitcoin best 50 bitcoin bitcoin куплю 8 bitcoin alpari bitcoin 22 bitcoin bitcoin аналоги monero core map bitcoin bitcoin завести robot bitcoin widget bitcoin bitcoin развод bitcoin hardfork nicehash bitcoin tether верификация
click bitcoin What Moves Ether’s Price?