- in Bitcoins by Robert N. Gonzalez
How Miners Get Bitcoins
Miners are people who try to collect the most recent transaction data from other users. Verify it as valid and then compile them down into a transaction block. The important thing is that not everyone can do this simply because if it would be that easy. Anyone could fake a transaction block and add it to the ledger which is a demise of all users.
That is why cryptography is used to protect the ledger from being hacked by fake users. This cryptography or the bitcoin algorithm was designed to make this whole mining process extremely difficult. Before a miner is able to add a block to the chain, they have to solve an extremely difficult computational puzzle. This is what is known as a proof of work scheme.
It is extremely difficult to find this scheme but it is that much easy to verify it and as a reward, a miner gets bitcoins. It is nothing more than a competition. Where miners compete who will be the one to solve this puzzle first for a certain reward. Once they find a solution. They make it public for all others in order to get the verification of the solution.
Once it is verified, the network adds it to the public blockchain. The miner who first solved the puzzle will be rewarded with 25 bitcoins. Mining bitcoins takes a lot of time, effort, money, computing power and energy but it can turn out to be a pay off eventually. If you want to learn more about mining, feel free to pay a visit to this website.
Mining is an integral part of bitcoin
The whole bitcoin network relies on miners because they are the ones who update and verify the public ledger. Which keeps a record of all transactions. More importantly, miners verify that the other users aren’t trying to hack the system. And add fake blocks to the chain which would cause the other users to lose all they have. That is why the miners are integral to the bitcoin. This is what keeps the whole bitcoin network protected and that is why more and more people are getting into cryptocurrencies.
Still, in order to become a miner, you have to invest a lot of money into your computing power because the stronger your computers are. The bigger chance of success you will have. Mining is nothing more than a process of adding the most recent transactions to the blockchain which makes them verified and confirmed as valid.
It is a competition between those who want to make sure that the transaction data is verified and true before it is added to the sequential blockchain. In order to compete, they have to solve a puzzle called proof of work. Read more about proof of work and what it is here. If you want to try mining yourself. You can easily use your current desktop or laptop, a mining pool and a mining program just for starters.