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If you're mining Bitcoin, you do not need to calculate the total value of the 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 newspaper and put it in a sealed envelope

In Bitcoin mining terms, that metaphorical undisclosed number in the envelope is known as the target 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 you can, as quickly as possible. A nonce is short for"number only used once," and also the nonce is the secret to generating these 64-bit hexadecimal numbers I keep talking about.

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The first 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 given the spoils of 12.5 BTC. .

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

The screenshot below, taken by the website Blockchain.info, might help you put all this information together at a glance. You're looking at a list of everything which happened when obstruct #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 into the Bitcoin community is that they confirmed 1768 transactions for this block. If you really want to see all 1768 of those transactions for this block, go to this page and scroll down to the heading"Transactions." .

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

Here are some examples of randomized hashes and the criteria for if they will lead to achievement for the miner:

You would have to get a speedy mining rig or, more realistically, join a mining pool--a bunch of miners who combine their computing power and divide the mined bitcoin. Mining pools are comparable to those Powerball clubs whose members purchase lottery tickets en masse and consent to discuss any winnings. A disproportionately high number of blocks are mined by pools rather than by individual miners. .

In other words, it's literally just a numbers game.  You cannot guess the pattern or make a prediction based on previous target hashes. The difficulty level of the most recent block at the time of writing is 2,874,674,234,416, i.e. the chance of any given nonce producing a hash below read this the goal is 1 in 2,874,674,234,416--less than 1 in 2 trillion. .

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The aforementioned site Cryptocompare delivers a very helpful calculator that permits you to plug in numbers such as your hash rate, power prices etc. to estimate the costs and benefits.

Mining benefits are paid into the miner who finds a solution to the puzzle , and the likelihood that a participant is going to be the one to discover the solution is equivalent to the portion of the total mining power on the network.  Participants which have a small percentage of the mining power stand a very small chance of discovering the next block on their own.  For instance, a mining card that one could purchase for a few thousand dollars would represent less than 0.001percent Bitcoin Mining Efficiency of their network's mining power.  With such a tiny chance at finding the next block, it could be a long time before that miner finds out a block, and also the problem going up makes things even worse.  The miner may never recover their investment.  The answer to this problem 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 flow of bitcoin starting the afternoon they activate their miner.  Statistics on a few of the mining pools can be seen on Blockchain.info. .

Sure. As discussed, the easiest way to get Bitcoin is to purchase it on an exchange like Coinbase.com. Alternately, you can always leverage the"pickaxe strategy". This relies on the old saw that during the 1848 California gold rush, the wise 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 utilized for Bitcoin mining. You can start looking into companies that make ASICs miners or GPU miners. .