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The way I understand mining is that you hash the previous block hash with the new transaction files and a variable to get certain amount of zero in the hash. So the stronger your hash power is the faster you find the new block hash. My problem is that thinking about it this way means that only the one with the highest hashing power will find the block first and get rewarded, then what are the others with lower hashing powers doing ? and how do they get rewarded ?

and do you get rewarded when you find the hash or you get rewarded every second of mining proportionally to your hashing power ? because the websites that offers hashing powers shows your balance to be continuously increasing and not as expected to increase step by step with each hash found.

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  • Hello user64980, please only ask one question per question post.
    – Murch ♦
    Nov 19, 2017 at 21:17

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The way I understand mining is that you hash the previous block hash with the new transaction files and a variable to get certain amount of zero in the hash.

You have chain A-B-C-D- , you create a new block, E, with its header (with variable called nonce and a reference to D's header hash) and body (the new transactions). You change the nonce in E's header and then hash the header. This hash should have certain amount of zeros.

So the stronger your hash power is the faster you find the new block hash.

True, but searching the correct hash means guessing the nonce from entire range of nonces, and everybody guesses their own variable. So the fastest computer will only have highest number of guesses. This doesn't mean someone else with only a few guesses won't guess it first. Like in a lottery, the guy who buys 1000 tickets is not sure to win comparing to the guy who bought 2 tickets, he just has better odds.

and how do they get rewarded ?

Only the one who guessed the hash is rewarded.

because the websites that offers hashing powers shows your balance to be continuously increasing and not as expected to increase step by step with each hash found.

If this site is a mining pool it gives rewards by some strategy, rather than giving the reward to the one who finds the hash at the moment when he finds the hash.

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  • - So the variable "nonce" is not just a number that get incremented with each failled hash, because this way the stronger win every time. Rather the nonce is guess randomly, is this correct ? -
    – user64980
    Nov 18, 2017 at 20:54
  • Not exactly like that, but in the sense of the question it is analogue as if they choose the "nonce" randomly.
    – croraf
    Nov 18, 2017 at 20:57
  • In reality they probably increment the nonce from 0, but there are other fields in the header that contribute the calculated hash, fields each miner has different. And entire header is input into hash calculation not just nonce, so "same nonce + different other fields" give rise to the situation that they don't guess with same inputs (they have different lottery tickets).
    – croraf
    Nov 18, 2017 at 21:00
  • and for the websites I am talking about websites where you buy hashing power and they mine and send you the profit. In these websites you can see your balance increasing continuously every second, and some websites calculate the amount of bitcoin you get depending on your hashing power ! but the way you explained it: no matter how much hashing power, every 10 min you will be either rewarded or not ! so what is wrong with these website ?
    – user64980
    Nov 18, 2017 at 21:05
  • They average profit in time. BTC is mined, so reward given, every 10min (roughly), not steadily per second or so. And the site gets rewarded every couple of hours probably (or maybe even every couple of days or so) - only when THEY and not someone else mine a correct block (hash) with some of your hardware.
    – croraf
    Nov 18, 2017 at 21:10
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When mining in a pool, you're rewarded proportionally by the hash rate you provide versus the total hash rate of the entire pool, or some variation on the theme.

The probability of finding a valid block hash is such that one block will be found in around 10 minutes regardless of the total hash power of the entire network. This is the "difficulty" number at work. Therefore, unless you control 51% or more of total network hash power, you are no more likely than anyone else to find the solution for the next block.

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