Crypto Mining

What is Mining?

Cryptocurrency mining is the process by which new transactions are verified, bundled into blocks, and added to a proof-of-work blockchain. Miners compete to solve a cryptographic hash puzzle — finding a number (the 'nonce') that makes the block's hash meet a target difficulty level. The first miner to solve the puzzle broadcasts the valid block to the network, receives the block reward (newly minted cryptocurrency), and collects transaction fees from included transactions. Mining requires specialized hardware, primarily application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for Bitcoin, and consumes significant amounts of electricity. The network automatically adjusts the puzzle difficulty every ~2 weeks to target a consistent block time of approximately 10 minutes. As more miners join, the difficulty rises; as miners leave, it falls. Mining underpins Bitcoin's security by making it economically prohibitive to rewrite the blockchain.