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What Is Cryptocurrency Mining? Table of Contents. Tech Essentials Blockchain Mining. Mining is one of the key elements that allow the Bitcoin blockchain to work as a distributed ledger. All transactions are recorded in a peer-to-peer network without the need for a central authority. In this article, we will discuss mining as it happens on the Bitcoin network, but the process is similar in altcoins that adopt the same mining mechanism.
As new blockchain transactions are made, they are sent to a pool called a memory pool. The job of a miner is to verify the validity of these pending transactions and organize them into blocks. You can think of a block as a page of the blockchain ledger, in which several transactions are recorded along with other data.
More specifically, a mining node is responsible for collecting unconfirmed transactions from the memory pool and assembling them into a candidate block. After that, the miner will try to convert this candidate block into a valid, confirmed block. But to do so, they need to find a solution for a complex mathematical problem. This requires a lot of computational resources, but every successfully mined block will give the miner a block reward, consisting of newly created cryptocurrencies plus transaction fees.
The first step of mining a block is to take pending transactions from the memory pool and submit them, one by one, through a hash function. Every time we submit a piece of data through a hash function, we will generate an output of fixed size called a hash. In the context of mining, the hash of each transaction consists of a string of numbers and letters that works as an identifier.
The transaction hash represents all the information contained within that transaction. Apart from hashing and listing each transaction individually, the miner also adds a custom transaction, in which they send themselves the block reward. This transaction is referred to as the coinbase transaction and is what creates brand new coins.
In most cases, the coinbase transaction is the first to be recorded in a new block, followed by all the pending transactions that they want to validate. After every transaction is hashed, the hashes are then organized into something called a Merkle Tree.
Also known as a hash tree, the Merkle Tree is formed by organizing the transaction hashes into pairs and then hashing them. The new hash outputs are then organized into pairs and hashed once again, and the process is repeated until a single hash is created. This last hash is also called a root hash or Merkle root and is basically the hash that represents all the previous hashes that were used to generate it.
A block header works as an identifier for each individual block, meaning that each block has a unique hash. When creating a new block, miners combine the hash of the previous block with the root hash of their candidate block to generate a new block hash. But apart from these two elements, they also need to add an arbitrary number called nonce.
In order to be considered valid, the output block hash must be less than a certain target value, which is determined by the protocol. In Bitcoin mining, the block hash must start with a certain number of zeros. This is what we call mining difficulty.
The mining difficulty is regularly adjusted by the protocol, ensuring that the rate at which new blocks are created remains constant. This is what makes the issuance of new coins steady and predictable. The difficulty adjusts in proportion to the amount of computational power hash rate devoted to the network. The competition between these blocks will continue until the next block is mined, on top of either one of the competing blocks.
When a new block is mined, whichever block that came before it will be considered the winner. The block that gets abandoned is called an orphan block or a stale block , leading all miners that picked this block to switch back to mining the chain of the winner block. Bitcoin is the most popular and well-established example of a mineable cryptocurrency, but not all cryptocurrencies are mineable.
Bitcoin mining is based on a consensus algorithm called Proof of Work PoW. It was introduced in the Bitcoin whitepaper, back in In a nutshell, PoW determines how a blockchain network reaches consensus across all the distributed participants without third-party intermediaries. It does this by requiring significant computing power to disincentivize bad actors. In order to win the right to mine the next block, miners compete by solving complex cryptographic puzzles with specialized mining hardware.
The first miner to find a valid solution can then broadcast their block of transactions to the blockchain, and receive the block reward. In the early days of Bitcoin, the cost and barrier to entry for mining was low. The pool which you connect to distributes work for miners to solve. The more difficult each "package" of work sent to you, the longer you will take to find a solution and reply back to the pool with this solution, named share.
As explained in this Post you will on average be rewarded the same solving problems of 10k difficulty at 10 seconds per share, as solving problems of 1k difficulty at 1 second per share. On the Antminer s9 Miner Status Tab the stats I believe, it may not be correct , I have deciphered are the following:. You can now check to see which difficulty the pool has automatically assigned to you in the Miner Status Page. Currently a new bitcoin block is found every 10 minutes or so, sometimes under a minute sometimes more than 15 minutes.
But if the next block were found in 1 minute and 2 seconds, you would have only lost 2 seconds theoretically cause you would have probably managed to submit a share. So, ultimately you don't want to overload the pool but you want to make sure that you risk as few shares as possible. From my experience hashing at Theoretical Max WU you can achieve is approximately 1 per I currently have a system configured at 10k Difficulty with a Utility of I have aimed for 18 shares per minute as that is what is recommended by the pool.
Disclaimer: This response are just compiled bits from forum replies, github code and other bits here and there I have found and my own understanding of how it apparently works. That's just the minimum that the pool will assign that worker, not the difficulty that it's actually working on. You can find that in your miner status page, under "DiffA " which shows the difficulty of the last accepted share. Generally you should not need to change the minimum. It's there in case the pool is having trouble determining what difficulty to use.
Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Start collaborating and sharing organizational knowledge. Create a free Team Why Teams? Learn more. How to select minimum difficulty when mining with Slush Pool Ask Question. Asked 4 years, 6 months ago. Modified 3 years, 11 months ago. Viewed 18k times. I am mining on a single Antminer S9 with Slush Pool. There is a setting called "minimum difficulty": When I read their manual , item 8 states The pool automatically assigns difficulty that corresponds to the hash rate of your miner.
What should I set the minimum difficulty be? Improve this question. AstroSharp AstroSharp 2 2 gold badges 4 4 silver badges 10 10 bronze badges. Add a comment. Sorted by: Reset to default. Highest score default Date modified newest first Date created oldest first.