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For instance, the SHA-256 of the word BUTTERFLY (origin ) is 8c62ace4f9ef8ccd08ca6fb992a8524bb7dbdc0530654bd254c9da07a660949a (HASH). This seemingly random string of letters and numbers contains three important properties:

Bitcoin mining involves three variables: the block, the mining difficulty and a random number. Heres how it all comes together:

Imagine our block 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 uses a simple test: If the HASH result of the block begins with a certain number of zeros, the block is considered verified.

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For our example, lets say that we have a mining problem of just two, ie, our HASH should start with two zeros. .

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The difficulty: BUTTERFLY will always return the exact same HASH, and it doesnt begin with two zeros. Thus what we need is your third factor, a random number (known as a NONCE). We carry this number, combine it with BUTTERFLY, and HASH again. If it doesnt begin with two zeros, we change the number and try again, and since changing one little number changes the whole HASH result, there is no way to predict the number well need to address this! .

We repeat this process over and over until we find a number that, when combined with BUTTERFLY, provides us a HASH that starts with two zeros. That number is the solution to the block. Here are some attempts:

This arduous procedure of randomly trying to find a number that gives the solution is the thing that makes bitcoin mining such a computationally expensive process, and as more miners join the network, the tougher it gets. At November 2017, a normal home computer working alone, ie, not an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and not a part of a cloud mining network, could require 2.7 million years to mine one block. .

This has led to the rise of ASIC computers constructed particularly for mining and to an increase in cloud mining.

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CPU mining. In the early days of bitcoin, mining difficulty was reduced and not a great deal of miners were competing for cubes and rewards. This made it rewarding to utilize your computers own central processing unit (CPU) to mine bitcoin. However, that approach was soon replaced by GPU mining.

GPU mining. A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a potent processor whose sole purpose is to help your own computers graphics card in rendering 3D graphics. GPUs are not constructed for executive decisions (like CPUs) but to be very great labourers, hence GPUs are able to execute over 800 times more instructions in the exact same amount of time as a CPU.

FPGA mining. Next came mining with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). These significantly outperformed GPUs and CPUs in the mining procedure as FPGAs are chips which can be programmed to perform specific instructions and only those instructions (instead of being repurposed for mining, like GPUs were).

ASIC mining. Similar to FPGAs, application-specific integrated circuits are chips designed for a specific purpose, in our case mining bitcoin, and nothing else. ASICs for bitcoin were introduced in 2013 and, as of November 2017, they're the best processors available 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 see page cloud mining networks. Whenever a miner in one of those pools solves a block, the reward is shared with everyone in the swimming pool in a ratio representative of just how much work you put into the pool (even though you personally never solved the puzzle). .

Cloud mining. Clouds offer potential miners the ability to buy mining rigs 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 opt to hang your digital pickaxe.

Once miners receive bitcoin, they are given a virtual key to the bitcoin addresses. You can use this digital key to gain access and validate or approve transactions.

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Desktop wallets. Software such as Bitcoin Core lets you send and store bitcoin addresses and connects to the network to track transactions.

Online wallets. Bitcoin keys are stored online by exchange programs like Coinbase or Circle and can be accessed from anywhere.

Mobile wallets. Apps like Blockchain store and encrypt your bitcoin keys so you can make payments using your cellular device.

Paper wallets. Some sites offer paper wallet services, generating a piece of paper using two QR codes on it. One code is the public address at which you receive bitcoin and the other one is your personal address you can use for spending.