All about Bitcoin Mining Efficiency

If you're mining Bitcoin, you do not need to calculate the total value of that 64-digit number (the hash). I repeat: You do not need to figure the total value of a hash.

Bear in Mind that ELI5 analogy, where I wrote the number 19 on a piece of paper and put it in a sealed envelope

In Bitcoin mining terms, that metaphorical undisclosed number in the envelope is called the target hash.

What miners are doing with these tremendous computers and dozens of cooling fans is guessing in the target hash. Miners create these guesses by randomly generating as many"nonces" as possible, as quickly as possible. A nonce is short for"number only used once," and also the nonce is the secret to generating these 64-bit hexadecimal numbers I keep talking about.

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The first miner whose nonce generates a hash that is less than or equal to the target hash is awarded credit for completing that block, and is given the spoils of 12.5 BTC. .

In theory you can achieve the Exact Same goal by rolling a 16-sided die 64 days to Reach random numbers, but why on earth do you want to do that

The screenshot below, taken by the website Blockchain.info, might enable you to put all of this information together at a glance. You are looking at a summary of everything that happened when block #490163 was mined. The nonce that generated the "winning" hash was 731511405. The target hash is shown on top.

As you see here, their contribution to the Bitcoin community is that they confirmed 1768 transactions for this block. If you truly want to see all 1768 of these transactions for this block, then go to this webpage and scroll down to the heading"Transactions." .

There is no minimum target, but there is a maximum goal set by the Bitcoin Protocol. No target can be greater than you can look here this number:

Here are some examples of randomized hashes and the standards for if they will lead to success for the miner:

You'd have to find a speedy mining rig or, more realistically, join a mining pool--a bunch of miners who combine their computing power and split the mined bitcoin. Mining pools are somewhat comparable to those Powerball clubs whose members purchase lottery tickets en masse and consent to discuss any winnings. A disproportionately high number of cubes are mined by pools rather than by individual miners. .

In other words, it's literally just a numbers game.  You cannot guess the pattern or make a prediction based on preceding goal hashes. The difficulty level of the most recent block at the time of writing is 2,874,674,234,416, i.e. the chance of any given nonce producing a hash below the target is just 1 in 2,874,674,234,416--significantly less than 1 in 2 trillion. .

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The aforementioned site Cryptocompare offers a very helpful calculator which allows you to plug in numbers like your hash rate, electricity costs etc. to estimate the costs and benefits.

Mining benefits are paid into the miner who finds a solution to the puzzle , and also the likelihood that a participant will be the one to find the solution is equivalent to the portion of the entire mining energy on the network.  Participants which have a small percentage of their mining capability stand a very small chance of discovering the next block on their own.  For instance, a mining card that one could purchase for a few thousand bucks would represent less than 0.001% of their network's mining energy.  With such a tiny chance at finding the next block, it could be a long time before that miner finds a block, and the difficulty going up makes things even worse.  The miner may never recover their investment.  The answer to this predicament is mining pools.  Mining pools are operated by third parties and coordinate groups of miners.  By working together in a pool and sharing the payouts amongst participants, miners can get a steady flow of bitcoin starting the day they activate their miner.  Statistics on a few of the mining pools can be seen on Blockchain.info. .

Sure. As mentioned, the easiest way to get Bitcoin is to purchase it on an exchange such as Coinbase.com. Alternately, you can consistently leverage the"pickaxe plan". This is based on the old saw that during the 1848 California gold rush, the smart investment was not to pan for goldbut instead to make the pickaxes taken for mining.

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In a crypto context, the pickaxe equivalent are a company that manufactures equpiment utilized for Bitcoin mining. You can start looking into companies that make ASICs miners or GPU miners. .