What is Bitcoin mining?

by | Feb 27, 2017 | Bitcoin, Blockchain

Bitcoin

What is Bitcoin mining?

Bitcoin is a form of decentralized digital currency. It is not printed like dollars or euros. It is created by people by running software that solves mathematical problems.

As we already discussed in the previous article (What is Bitcoin?), Bitcoin is created by a community of people by running software that solves certain mathematical problems. This process of creating Bitcoin by running some software is called Bitcoin Mining.

What do Bitcoin miners do?

Bitcoins are traded digitally. Someone has to keep track of all the Bitcoin transactions. The bitcoin network does this by collecting the set of transactions during a certain period of time and keeping them in a list called ‘block’. A list of blocks is called ‘blockchain’ (What is Blockchain?). It is the Bitcoin miners’ job to add a block to the blockchain.

How easy is Bitcoin mining?

It is not easy. The miners have to keep track of all the transactions that take place during a certain period of time and apply some mathematical formula on it, the result of which is kept in the blockchain. This mathematical problem is not easy to solve.

What is the mathematical problem that Bitcoin miners solve?

All Bitcoin transactions are maintained in blocks, and the blocks are linked to each other to form a blockchain, with each block linked with its previous block.

Miners have to perform a cryptographic hash of the previous block in the chain and find a number called a nonce, such that if the content of the block is hashed along with the nonce, the resultant value is less than the network’s difficulty target. It takes lots of computation power to solve this mathematical problem. The Bitcoin miners normally find a nonce, create a hashed value, and compare it with the network’s difficulty target. And, if the result is not satisfactory, the miners keep trying with different nonce values.

What is the reward for Bitcoin Mining?

Every time a Bitcoin miner successfully adds a block to the blockchain, he is rewarded with a certain number of bitcoins. This reward, called block reward, is halved after every 2,10,000 blocks. The block reward started with 50 bitcoins in 2009; from 2014, it is 25 bitcoins now.

There is something called transaction fees also, this is optional though. Payers may include …

Pages: 1 2
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Related posts:

BlockchainWhat is Blockchain? BitcoinHow does Bitcoin mining work? BitcoinWhat is Bitcoin? PKI and BlockchainPublic Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Blockchain CryptojackingWhat is cryptojacking and how to detect and prevent it? Encryption and Decryption in CBC modeImplementation of Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) Encryption And Decryption In ECB ModeBlock Cipher Modes of Operation IKEv2 ProtocolHow does the IKEv2 protocol work? Smart ContractsSmart Contracts and Blockchain RAID 0What is RAID and how does RAID work? Merkle TreeWhat is the Merkle Tree? EMVWhat is the EMV chip card technology and how does it work? TokenizationWhat is Tokenization? DES Encryption AlgorithmHow does DES encryption work? DNS CookiesWhat is DNS Cookies and how does it work? RansomwareHow to prevent ransomware?

Calculate the pseudoinverse of a matrix using Python

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

What is the pseudoinverse of a matrix? We know that if A is a square matrix with full rank, then A-1 is said to be the inverse of A if the following condition holds: $latex AA^{-1}=A^{-1}A=I $ The pseudoinverse or the Moore-Penrose inverse of a matrix is a...
Read More

Cholesky decomposition using Python

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

What is Cholesky decomposition? A square matrix A is said to have Cholesky decomposition if it can be written as a product of a lower triangular matrix and its conjugate transpose. $latex A=LL^{*} $ If all the entries of A are real numbers, then the conjugate...
Read More

Tensor Hadamard Product using Python

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

In one of our previous articles, we already discussed what the Hadamard product in linear algebra is. We discussed that if A and B are two matrices of size mxn, then the Hadamard product of A and B is another mxn matrix C such that: $latex H_{i,j}=A_{i,j} \times...
Read More

Perform tensor addition and subtraction using Python

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

We can use numpy nd-array to create a tensor in Python. We can use the following Python code to perform tensor addition and subtraction. import numpy A = numpy.random.randint(low=1, high=10, size=(3, 3, 3)) B = numpy.random.randint(low=1, high=10, size=(3, 3, 3)) C =...
Read More

How to create a tensor using Python?

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

What is a tensor? A tensor is a generalization of vectors and matrices. It is easily understood as a multidimensional array. For example, in machine learning, we can organize data in an m-way array and refer it as a data tensor. Data related to images, sounds, movies,...
Read More

How to combine NumPy arrays using horizontal stack?

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

We can use the hstack() function from the numpy module to combine two or more NumPy arrays horizontally. For example, we can use the following Python code to combine three NumPy arrays horizontally. import numpy A = numpy.array([[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]]) B =...
Read More

How to combine NumPy arrays using vertical stack?

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

Let’s say we have two or more NumPy arrays. We can combine these NumPy arrays vertically using the vstack() function from the numpy module. For example, we can use the following Python code to combine three NumPy arrays vertically. import numpy A = numpy.array([[1, 2,...
Read More

Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) using Python

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

What is Singular Value Decomposition (SVD)? Let A be an mxn rectangular matrix. Using Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), we can decompose the matrix A in the following way: $latex A_{m \times n}=U_{m \times m}S_{m \times n}V_{n \times n}^T $ Here, U is an mxm matrix....
Read More

Eigen decomposition of a square matrix using Python

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

Let A be a square matrix. Let’s say A has k eigenvalues λ1, λ2, ... λk. And the corresponding eigenvectors are X1, X2, ... Xk. $latex X_1=\begin{bmatrix} x_{11} \\ x_{21} \\ x_{31} \\ ... \\ x_{k1} \end{bmatrix} \\ X_2=\begin{bmatrix} x_{12} \\ x_{22} \\ x_{32} \\ ......
Read More

How to calculate eigenvalues and eigenvectors using Python?

by | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

In our previous article, we discussed what eigen values and eigenvectors of a square matrix are and how we can calculate the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a square matrix mathematically. We discussed that if A is a square matrix, then $latex (A- \lambda I) \vec{u}=0...
Read More

Amrita Mitra

Author

Ms. Amrita Mitra is an author, who has authored the books “Cryptography And Public Key Infrastructure“, “Web Application Vulnerabilities And Prevention“, “A Guide To Cyber Security” and “Phishing: Detection, Analysis And Prevention“. She is also the founder of Asigosec Technologies, the company that owns The Security Buddy.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Not a premium member yet?

Please follow the link below to buy The Security Buddy Premium Membership.

Buy Premium Membership

Featured Posts

Translate »