Generating bitcoin ( English )

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Generating bitcoins

Mining is the process by which Bitcoin transactions are secured. For this purpose the miners carry out mathematical calculations for the Bitcoin network with their computer equipment. As a reward for their services, they collect the newly created bitcoins as well as the transaction fees they confirm. Currently this reward is 12.5 bitcoins per block. It is halved every four years.

Miners (or miners' cooperatives) are competing and their incomes are proportional to the computing power deployed.

"To describe the mining, one could use the example of a gigantic contest of sudoku where the participants start a new grid as soon as someone finds a solution, and whose difficulty is adjusted so that on average a grid is Resolved every ten minutes. Imagine a giant grid of sudoku, with several thousand lines and columns. It would be fairly easy to verify that a completed grid is full. But [...] it will take a lot of work to finish it! The difficulty of the grids can be adjusted by changing their sizes [...], but they can always be checked easily even if they are very large. The puzzles to be solved in the bitcoin network are based on cryptographic hashes and have the same characteristics as these sudoku grids: they are very difficult to solve but it is very easy to verify that a solution is good and their difficulty can be adjusted. - Andreas M. Antonopoulos.

What do miners calculate?

The miners perform cryptographic hashes (two successive SHA256s) on what is called a block header. For each new hash, the mining software uses a different random number called the nonce. Depending on the contents of the block and the value of the nuncio, the hash produced will look like this:

93ef6f358fbb998c60802496863052290d4c63735b7fe5bdaac821de96a53a9a

This hash can be converted into a very long number. (This is a hexadecimal number, which means that the letters A-F are the numbers 10-15). In order to make the mining difficult, there is what is called the target difficulty. In order to create a valid block, a minor must find a hash that is less than the target difficulty. For example, if the difficulty is:

1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Any number starting with a zero would be accepted and considered lower than the target. Example:

0787a6fd6e0782f7f8058fbef45f5c17fe89086ad4e78a1520d06505acb4522f

If we decrease the target to:

0100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

We now need a number beginning with two zeros:

00db27957bd0ba06a5af9e6c81226d74312a7028cf9a08fa125e49f15cae4979

Because the target is a bulky number with many digits, a simpler number is usually used to express the current target. This number is called the mining difficulty. The mining difficulty is calibrated on the first block created. This means that a difficulty of 70000 means 7000 times more computational power than it took Satoshi Nakamoto to generate the first block, when he was the only minor and he was using only the CPU of a computer, a computer.

The difficulty changes every 2016 blocks. The network adjusts the difficulty so that the generation time of these 2016 blocks is 14 days, regardless of the computing power deployed. This is why the difficulty increases with the power of the network.

How to mine bitcoins?

Bitcoins mining is no longer a profitable business for private individuals. The popularity of Bitcoin has generated a huge competition that makes it inaccessible. Only some industrial sites still benefit from this activity. Before venturing into this adventure, we invite you to read Greg Ryder's testimony or that of Ouriel Benaroch and to visit the mining space on the Bitcointalk forum.

Let us note in passing the existence of companies which practice the "cloud mining" and sell calculation capacity to their customers who receive in exchange the fractions of mined bitcoins, after deduction of management fees. Beware however, some services are often very disappointing, when it is not simply pure scams. Generally, even when practiced seriously, "cloud mining" is rarely profitable. Let us welcome all the same the approach of just-mining.com which starts a mining solution with the concern to distribute the profits equitably between the client and the manager.

If, through pure militancy and to contribute to the good functioning of the network, you still want to undermine bitcoins you can for example use the GUIminer software by following these steps.

If you want to undermine somewhat more accessible "crypto-currencies" you can use the Minergate * software keeping in mind that profitability is very uncertain.