Glossary
Mining
Mining is the process by which computers compete to add new blocks of transactions to a proof-of-work blockchain, securing the network and, in return, earning newly issued coins and transaction fees.
The close-up. On a proof-of-work network, miners run specialized hardware that repeatedly guesses a number until one produces a valid result under the network's target — a puzzle that is hard to solve but trivial for others to verify. The first miner to find a valid answer broadcasts a new block, and the rest of the network checks and accepts it. For this work, the miner collects a block reward of newly created coins plus the fees attached to the transactions in that block. The network automatically adjusts the puzzle's difficulty so that blocks arrive at a steady, predictable pace no matter how much computing power joins or leaves.
The wide shot. Mining is how a decentralized system agrees on one shared history without a central authority. Because rewriting past blocks would require redoing all the accumulated work, mining makes tampering expensive and honesty profitable — the economic backbone of proof of work. The trade-off is energy: securing the chain consumes real electricity, which is why many networks instead use proof of stake.
Mining is often confused with staking, but they are different mechanisms. Not every coin can be mined, and the specifics vary by protocol. To explore assets and their consensus models, browse coins. This is informational only — always do your own research.