Questions tagged [mining-technical-details]

Questions concerned with the technical details of mining such as blockheader assembly, or details in the mining algorithm. Questions about the conceptual nature of mining should rather be tagged with [mining-theory].

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How will mining work after 2140?

The nonce header of a block has 32 bits. The vast majority of the time, none of the 2^32 nonces will result in a block hash below the target. So to continue mining, miners usually change the ...
JacopoStanchi's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
49 views

Could a miner set a maximium transaction fee rate?

Could a miner set a maximimum transaction fee rate? I mean validate only transactions between x and y satoshis/byte? I know is not clever. Is it possible?
Pablo Estevez's user avatar
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How do Bitcoin clients/miners verify balances quickly?

Bitcoin clients must find balances for some public keys quickly. Especially, miners must find balances for all incoming transactions. I see the problem: public key with associated address can appear ...
Andrzej's user avatar
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1 answer
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Sorry newbie, I dont get the PoS block creation, to much contradiction

I am sorry for the repeat question but I cant find a clear answer. Most of the time PoS isnt explained in detail (only explaining the advantage) and a lot of sources contradict each other and now I am ...
Phi La's user avatar
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Debug Bitcoin Core Mining

I'm running the generate command on a bitcoin core fork (with difficulty = 1) and bitcoind running in another window and outputting the best/vs. hashes as it should when generate is running. However, ...
user3190635's user avatar
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2 answers
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Bitcoin Mining using an iPhone?

Is it possible to start Bitcoin mining using an iPhone with 4G internet connection? Storage is not an issue,or is it? (Mine is 256GB).
user377340's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
2k views

How are eth transaction faster than btc? [closed]

If I'm not wrong miners are trying to find nonce that satisfies a rule. Then why is btc so slow? I want a technical answer. Can btc ever match eth speed, given no politics?
KOKRO's user avatar
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1 answer
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Bitcoin mining algorithm - target - Java

Default share difficulty is 1 (big-endian target for difficulty 1 is 0x00000000ffff0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000) How to calculate this? How it look like on Java code? What ...
Oleg D's user avatar
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Do Miners have to get below the Target or the Bits value?

You get a specific Target value when you divide the maximum Target by the Difficulty. But when you convert the Target in to the Bits format, you're only taking the first 3 bytes of the Target and ...
inersha's user avatar
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25 votes
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How does AsicBoost work?

The AsicBoost paper by Timo Hanke and Sergio Demian Lerner describes a way of increasing ASIC performance by 20%. It's a bit sparse on the details, though. What are they optimizing?
Nick ODell's user avatar
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Mining , hash and Nonce [duplicate]

I lack something in my understanding of how the mining process works. If a miner has to loop over a block and re-calculate it's SHA256 for only 2^32 (the amount of different nonce values possible) ...
Jordan Sheinfeld's user avatar
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Where can I find the structure and layout of what exactly gets hashed by miners?

I understand that a miner has a list of bitcoin transactions since the last time a a block was discovered. The first entry is the reward for who discovered the previous block. As more transactions ...
Corey Ogburn's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
2k views

When does a miner decide to stop collecting transactions and start calculating hashes to try to win?

I am confused about whether a miner chooses to wait for more transactions (more fees) or starts as soon as it receives the first transaction from the network. Once a miner has started calculating the ...
Peter Mel's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
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What is SPV mining, and how did it (inadvertently) cause the fork after BIP66 was activated?

I'm curious to hear an in-depth explanation of the hard fork and how it was caused; I've heard/read a great deal but I'm lacking a cohesive explanation.
Josh Cincinnati's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
36k views

Want to write my own solo cpu bitcoin miner

I just want to understand how this mining process works (from the developers point of view from very start to end). Can someone guide me towards a doc or a open source code (I am newbie here so a VERY ...
evans's user avatar
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Which function is called to mine a block, broadcast the newly mined block & receive a newly mined block?

I am trying to understand the control flow and handling of transactions in the memory pool.
somesh's user avatar
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3 answers
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Visualize Bitcoin Hashing

According to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hash, BitCoin uses the SHA-256 hash algorithm to generate verifiably "random" numbers in a way that requires a predictable amount of CPU effort. ...
Digital fire's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
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What is the most lightweight proof-of-work algorithm?

I know litecoin was created back in the day using Scrypt as to make it more lightweight but also harder to build ASIC hardware from - so everyday computers could mine. Are there other algorithms one ...
Luca Matteis's user avatar
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Why does an adversary have to control 50% of the computing power to double spend?

If transactions in a block are valid, in order to add that block in the block chain, a proof of work needs to be found. I have read the bitcoin paper by Satoshi. If the difficulty of the proof of ...
Curious's user avatar
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5 votes
2 answers
478 views

If block sizes go up, won't sigop limits have to change too?

Gavin Andresen, one of the core developers, has discussed increasing the block size to 16.7 MB (and doubling that every two years). The maximum number of signature operations per block is currently ...
Nick ODell's user avatar
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7 votes
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How is it that concurrent miners do not subvert each other's work?

Every time a new block is added on top of block chain, the miners have to restart their work because the next block has to have a proper reference to previous block. Let's suppose that there is some ...
czerny's user avatar
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1 answer
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Why does the bitcoin mining code have the same if statement twice?

From the v0.9.3 miner.cpp source (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/v0.9.3/src/miner.cpp#L598-L604): if (GetTimeMillis() - nHPSTimerStart > 4000) { static CCriticalSection cs; { ...
morsecoder's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
481 views

Explain this comment on nNonce from the bitcoin miner.cpp source?

This comment is in the 0.9.3 miner.cpp bitcoin source, right above the ScanHash_CryptoPP definition. // // ScanHash scans nonces looking for a hash with at least some zero bits. // It operates on ...
morsecoder's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
529 views

Has the nonce used in mining been sized?

In the mining process, everytime a block has to be confirmed, a certain hash with an incremental nonce is generated: If the nonce is a 32 bit number it can assume a value between 0 and 2^32 - 1. It ...
nglpx1's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
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Why does the daemon require peers in order to start mining?

I wanted to start mining Bitcoin from the genesis block, so I cloned Bitcoin and removed the checkpoints. Then I compiled and started up the daemon. I wasn't connected to any other peers, however, so ...
morsecoder's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
6k views

Why don't any of the SHA-256 vulnerabilities matter for mining?

Wikipedia lists several vulnerabilities in SHA-256. Presumably, none of them can be used to mine faster, or it would be done already. Why don't these vulnerabilities lead to a problem for mining?
ike's user avatar
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5 votes
3 answers
419 views

How hard is it to alter a block after it was found?

Once a miner has found a block, how easy it is for him to add or remove a tx included in that very block? Would he have to solve the modified block from the scratch or is there a point he can resume ...
Doug Peters's user avatar
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-1 votes
1 answer
237 views

Has anyone verified what your CPU is being used to do when it "mines" for bitcoins? [duplicate]

I understand that "mining" for bitcoins requires your computer to do work that you don't monitor, so my question is, how do you know what it is that your computer is doing? Has anyone verified what ...
JCN3's user avatar
  • 21
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

How do pool server's handle multiple workers sharing one connection with Stratum protocol

The stratum protocol supports authorizing multiple workers in a single connection. Unfortunately, I didn't find any documentation about how this should be handled by pool server software. If multiple ...
thankyou's user avatar
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Should mining.notify.merkle_branches contain the coinbase transaction or not?

Okay I'm working on a new pool-server though got a question. I'm using litecoin testnet right now to test stuff and here's a getblocktemplate() response I get; { "result": { "version": 2, "...
HuseyinUslu's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
256 views

Given the current hashing powers, what do pools actually do in practice?

Given the current hashing powers, what do pools actually do in practice to find a block? Ok, so here is my thinking, please correct me if I'm wrong anywhere: Here's the format of the block header, ...
user15745's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
5k views

Probablity Distribution of mining

What is the probability distribution of solving a block, given the same difficulty. So if I try to mine multiple times using the same difficulty, is it normal distribution with mean of 10 minutes? ...
jaybny's user avatar
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2 answers
396 views

How Is Block Assembled?

I think I understand mining well enough, but what I don't get is how the blocks of transactions are assembled. According to this post - What exactly is Mining? - the miners assemble the blocks and ...
a432511's user avatar
  • 123
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

In pooled mining, what is pdiff, bdiff and ldiff?

In pooled mining, there seem to be three different terms for difficulty in use. Apparently, the Stratum protocol uses bdiff, BTCGuild uses pdiff, and Ldiff is common for various Scrypt pools as ...
Dr.Haribo's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
312 views

If more than one coin did the "mini-blockchain" proposal, would that make the weaker coin vulnerable?

So, I was reading this paper as a proposal to the ever growing blockchain problem. In summary, it's security is provided without a full blockchain by having a proof chain with these fields: Previous ...
Earlz's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
39 views

Is there an up-to-date professional analysis of different "mining shield" technologies?

E.g. Digishield, Gravity Well etc. As a non-miner, I only hear bits and pieces about these algorithms. Is there a comprehensive resource with details on the history of these algorithsm and relative ...
ripper234's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
86 views

Where is the code that specifies when a block is released?

I'm not sure how this exactly works. So roughly every 10 mins a block is released to the network. How is this done? Does my bitcoin client signal this? Would that mean in theory if there was just one ...
Sean's user avatar
  • 23
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

How to tell who mined a bitcoin?

If the Bitcoin algorithm was broken and someone started spitting out blocks one after the other through their otherworldly space computer, could it be detected that the same miner was busting all the ...
Motomotes's user avatar
  • 143
1 vote
4 answers
521 views

isn't miner collusion rational?

suppose for the sake of argument that each individual miner has the same amount of hashing power of one hash per unit of time (a "tick"). the probability that a miner solves their block in the next ...
popstack's user avatar
  • 178
16 votes
3 answers
24k views

How do mining pools work?

I understand the following Pooled mining is a mining approach where multiple generating clients contribute to the generation of a block, and then split the block reward according the ...
user2789433's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
1k views

In Stratum protocol, whether the miners know the mining address?

In Stratum protocol, since the coinbase transaction has to be hashed in the miner's side, so the pool has to send coinbase1 and coinbase2 to the miners. Therefore, is it possible for the miner to ...
BitThink's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
285 views

Can a miner refuse it's reward? [duplicate]

As of 2014, miners that successfully mine a block are entitled to 25 bitcoins. Can miners refuse to receive those 25 bitcoins, thereby reducing the total number of bitcoins that will ever be mined?
Randomblue's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
14k views

When mining with 2 computers, do I need to use 2 separate wallets addresses?

I understand that each miner is working on a different block. Correct me if I'm wrong but this is because the first transaction in a block basically contains my wallet address so I can receive the ...
Aust's user avatar
  • 113
1 vote
0 answers
416 views

Litecoin getwork specification, endianness

Please help me with getwork protocol for litecoin miner.There is mixed info online about endiannes of data provided by getwork and data that should be submitted to mining pools. According to https://...
semtexzv's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
3k views

Which coins can butterfly-labs miners mine

Can I use a butterfly-labs miner to mine any crypto-currency?
oshirowanen's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
509 views

What happens to a miner's work when they restart?

I am studying the bitcoin internals and especially the proof-of-work. The proof-of-work is based on the mathematical problem that we have to compute from an input that produces a hash with a certain ...
angel limneos's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
779 views

Anyone successfully mining bitcoins in Testnet3?

I've been chugging away on multiple machines for days, and while I get a lot of 'unconfirmed' and 'orphaned' and 'immature' blocks, nothing lands in my wallet. Anyone else having this problem? From ...
user10215's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
1k views

Bitcoin Miner Pseudo code

I want to understand how the mining process works so that I can code up my own bitcoin miner. Does anybody have pseudo code of a bitcoin miner that will help me achieve this? Also, help with an ...
user2472071's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
340 views

Question solved by bitcoin miners [duplicate]

What computational questions are solved by bitcoin miners and what is the computational complexity of one instance of this question. Essentially, how would someone program an application for bitcoin ...
user2472071's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
377 views

Cheating ASICs and Mining Software

I've noticed the recently solved block hashes have started with a number of zeros (8 last time I checked). Couldn't we just tell our mining hardware/software to assume the first few digits are in fact ...
Rex's user avatar
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