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For example, the SHA-256 of the term BUTTERFLY (source) is 8c62ace4f9ef8ccd08ca6fb992a8524bb7dbdc0530654bd254c9da07a660949a (HASH). This seemingly random string of letters and numbers has three important properties:

Bitcoin mining involves three factors: the cube, 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 cube would contain a listing 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 cube is considered verified.

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For instance, lets say that we've a mining difficulty of simply two, ie, our HASH should start with two zeros. .

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The difficulty: BUTTERFLY will return the same HASH, and it doesnt begin with two zeros. Thus what we need is the next factor, a random number (called 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 small number changes the whole HASH outcome, there is no method to predict the number well need to solve this! .

We repeat this procedure 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 your solution to the block. Here are some attempts:

This arduous process of randomly trying to find a number that supplies the solution is the thing that creates bitcoin mining such a computationally expensive procedure, and as more miners join the network, the harder 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 into mine one block. .

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

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CPU mining. In the early days of bitcoin, mining difficulty was low and not a lot of miners were competing for blocks and rewards. This made it worthwhile to use 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 objective is to assist your own computers graphics card in rendering 3D graphics. GPUs are not built for executive decisions (such as CPUs) but to be very good labourers, hence GPUs are able to execute over 800 times more instructions in the 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 certain instructions and only those instructions (instead of being repurposed for mining, such as GPUs were).

ASIC mining. Similar to FPGAs, application-specific integrated circuits are chips designed for a specific function, in our situation mining bitcoin, and nothing else. ASICs for bitcoin were introduced in 2013 and, as of November 2017, they are the best processors available for mining bitcoin and they outperform FPGAs in power consumption. .

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Mining pools. To offset the difficulty of mining a block, miners started organising in cloud or pools 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 mystery ). .

Cloud mining. Clouds offer potential miners the ability to purchase mining rigs in a remote data centre location. There are many obvious advantages, the most obvious beingno electricity expenses, no extra heat and nothing to sell when you decide to read here hang your digital pickaxe.

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

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Desktop pockets. Software like Bitcoin Core lets you send and save bitcoin addresses and also connects to the network to monitor transactions.

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

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

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