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If you're mining Bitcoin, you do not need to figure the entire value of that 64-digit number (the hash). I repeat: You do not need to calculate the total value of a hash.

Remember that ELI5 analogy, in which I wrote the number 19 on a piece of paper and put it in a sealed envelope

In Bitcoin mining conditions, that metaphorical undisclosed number in the envelope is called the objective hash.

What miners are doing with these tremendous computers and dozens of cooling fans is guessing at the hash. Miners make these guesses by randomly generating as many"nonces" as possible, as quickly as possible. A nonce is short for"number only used once," and the nonce is the key to generating these 64-bit hexadecimal numbers I keep talking about.

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The primary miner whose nonce generates a hash that is less than or equal to the target hash is awarded credit for completing that block, and is awarded the spoils of 12.5 BTC. .

In theory you could achieve the Exact Same aim by rolling a 16-sided expire 64 days to Reach random numbers, but why on earth do you want to do this

The screenshot below, taken by the site Blockchain.info, might help you put all this information together at a glance. You're looking at a summary of everything which happened when block 490163 was mined. The nonce that generated the "winning" hash was 731511405. The target hash is shown on top.

As you see here, their contribution to the Bitcoin community is that they confirmed 1768 transactions for this block. If you really want to find all 1768 of these transactions for this block, go to this page and scroll down to the heading"Transactions." .

There's no minimum goal, but there is a maximum target set by the Bitcoin Protocol. No goal can be higher than this number:

Here are some examples of randomized hashes and the standards for whether they will lead to success for the miner:

You would have to get a fast mining rig , more realistically, join a mining pool--a group of miners who combine their computing power and split the mined bitcoin. Mining pools are somewhat comparable to people Powerball clubs whose members purchase lottery tickets en masse and agree to discuss any winnings. A disproportionately large number of cubes are mined by pools rather than by individual miners. .

In other words, it is literally only a numbers game.  You cannot imagine the pattern or make a prediction based on preceding target hashes. The difficulty level of the most recent see post block at the time of writing is 2,874,674,234,416, i.e. the chance of any given nonce producing a hash beneath the goal is 1 in 2,874,674,234,416--significantly less than 1 in 2 trillion. .

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The aforementioned website Cryptocompare offers a very helpful calculator which allows you to plug in numbers such as your hash rate, electricity costs etc. to gauge the costs and benefits.

Mining rewards are paid to the miner who discovers a solution to the puzzle first, and also the probability that a participant will be the one to find the solution is equal to the portion of the entire mining energy on the network.  Participants with a small percentage of their mining capability stand a tiny chance of discovering the next block on their own.  For instance, a mining card that one could buy to get a couple thousand dollars would represent less than 0.001% of the network's mining energy.  With such a tiny chance at finding the next block, it might be a long time before that miner finds out a block, and also the difficulty going up makes things even worse.  The miner may never try this recover their investment.  The answer to this predicament is mining pools.  Mining pools are operated by third parties and coordinate groups of miners.  By working together in a pool and sharing the payouts amongst participants, miners can find a steady stream of bitcoin starting the day they activate their miner.  Statistics on some of the Get the facts mining pools can be seen on Blockchain.info. .

Sure. As mentioned, the easiest way to acquire Bitcoin is to buy it on an exchange like Coinbase.com. Alternately, you can always leverage the"pickaxe plan". This relies on the old saw that during the 1848 California gold rush, the smart investment was not to pan for goldbut instead to create the pickaxes used for mining.

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In a crypto context, the pickaxe equivalent would be a company that manufactures equpiment used for Bitcoin mining. You can start looking into companies which make ASICs miners or GPU miners. .