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

Remember that ELI5 analogy, in which I composed the number 19 on a piece of newspaper 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 make these guesses by randomly generating as many"nonces" as possible, as quickly as possible. A nonce is short for"number only used once," and 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 equivalent to the target hash is awarded credit for completing that block, and is awarded the spoils of 12.5 BTC. .

In theory you could Attain the same aim by rolling a 16-sided expire 64 days to arrive at random numbers, but why on earth do you want to do this

The screenshot below, taken from the website Blockchain.info, might help you put all of this information together at a glance. You're looking at a list of everything which happened when block #490163 was mined. The nonce that generated the "winning" hash was 731511405. The goal hash is shown on the top.

As you see here, their contribution into the Bitcoin community is that they confirmed 1768 transactions for this cube. If you really want to find all 1768 of those transactions for this block, go to this page 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 higher than this number:

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

You'd have to find a fast mining rig or, more realistically, join a mining pool--a group of miners who combine their computing power and divide the mined bitcoin. Mining pools are comparable to people Powerball clubs whose members buy 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 is literally just a numbers game.  You cannot imagine the pattern or make a prediction based on previous 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 beneath the target is just 1 in 2,874,674,234,416--less than 1 in two trillion. .

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The aforementioned website Cryptocompare offers a very helpful calculator that allows you to plug in numbers like your hash speed, power prices etc. to gauge the costs and benefits.

Mining benefits are paid to the miner who finds a solution check my blog to the puzzle first, and also the probability that a participant will be the one to find the solution is equal to the portion of the entire mining energy on the network.  Participants with a small percentage of their mining power stand a tiny chance of discovering the next block on their own.  For instance, a mining card that one could purchase to get a couple thousand bucks would represent less than 0.001% of their network's mining energy.  With such a small chance at finding the next block, it could be a long time before that miner finds out a block, and also 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 find a steady stream of bitcoin starting the afternoon they activate their miner.  Statistics on some of the mining pools can be seen on Blockchain.info. .

Sure. As mentioned, the simplest way to get Bitcoin is to buy it on an exchange such as Coinbase.com. Alternately, you can consistently leverage the"pickaxe strategy". This relies on the old saw that during the 1848 California gold rush, the wise investment was not to pan for goldbut rather to make the pickaxes used for mining.

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