Blockchain Protocol Fundamentals Explained
For instance, the SHA-256 of the term BUTTERFLY (origin ) is 8c62ace4f9ef8ccd08ca6fb992a8524bb7dbdc0530654bd254c9da07a660949a (HASH). This seemingly random string of letters and numbers contains three important properties:
Bitcoin mining involves three factors: the cube, the mining difficulty and a random number. Heres how it all comes together:
Imagine our cube consists of the term BUTTERFLY discussed earlier. In reality, the block would contain a list of recent, unverified transactions, but lets keep it simple. In order for the block to be solved, bitcoin utilizes a deceptively simple test: If the HASH consequence of the block begins with a certain number of zeros, the block is considered confirmed.
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For our example, lets say that we've a mining difficulty of just two, ie, our HASH must start with two zeros. .
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The problem: BUTTERFLY will return the same HASH, and it doesnt start with two zeros. So what we need is your next factor, a random number (known as a NONCE). We carry this number, combine it with BUTTERFLY, and HASH again. If it doesnt start with two zeros, we change the number and try again, and because changing one little number changes the entire HASH result, there is no method to predict the number well need to address this! .
We repeat this procedure over and over until we find a number that, when combined with BUTTERFLY, gives us a HASH that begins with two zeros. That number is the solution to the block. Here are some tries:
This arduous process of randomly trying to find a number that gives the solution is what creates bitcoin mining such a computationally expensive procedure, and as more miners join the network, the harder it gets. At November 2017, a normal home computer working alone, ie, not an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and not part of a cloud mining network, could require 2.7 million years to mine one block. . go to my blog
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CPU mining. In the first days of bitcoin, mining difficulty was reduced and not a lot of miners were competing for cubes and rewards. This made it rewarding to use your computers own central processing unit (CPU) to mine bitcoin. However, that approach was soon replaced by GPU mining.
FPGA mining. Next came mining using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). These greatly outperformed GPUs and CPUs in the mining procedure as FPGAs are chips which can be programmed to execute specific instructions and only those instructions (instead of being repurposed for mining, such as GPUs were).
ASIC mining. Similar to FPGAs, application-specific integrated circuits are processors designed for a particular purpose, in our case mining bitcoin, and nothing else. ASICs for bitcoin were introduced in 2013 and, as of November 2017, they are the best processors out there for mining bitcoin and they outperform FPGAs in electricity consumption. .
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Mining pools. To offset the difficulty of mining a block, miners started organising in pools or cloud mining networks. Whenever a miner in one of those pools simplifies a cube, the reward is shared with everyone in the swimming pool in a ratio representative of how much work you put into the swimming pool (even though you personally never solved the puzzle). .
Cloud mining. Clouds provide potential miners the ability to purchase mining channels in a remote data centre location. There are many obvious advantages, the most obvious beingno energy expenses, no extra heat and nothing to sell when you decide to hang up your virtual pickaxe.
Once miners get bitcoin, they are given a digital key to the bitcoin addresses. You can use this electronic key to access and validate or approve transactions.
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Desktop wallets. Software like Bitcoin Core lets you send and save bitcoin addresses and connects to the network to track transactions.
Online wallets. Bitcoin keys are stored online by exchange programs such as Coinbase or Circle and can be retrieved from anywhere.
Mobile wallets. Apps like Blockchain store and encrypt your bitcoin keys so that you can make payments using your mobile device.
Paper wallets. Some sites offer paper wallet solutions, generating a bit of paper using just two QR codes on it. One code is the public address at which you receive bitcoin and the other one is your private address you can use for spending.