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What are the size constraints for extranonce2?

I am curious about the size constraints for extranonce2. Is its size effectively unlimited, or are there specific limits or practical considerations imposed on it? Could someone clarify if there are ...
Mutti Kangungu's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
86 views

nonce search algorithm [duplicate]

I have a question about the nonce search algorithm. Let's say I have a s9 miner and my competitor has a more powerful s19. We both check nonces from 0 sequentially, so I will check nonces that my ...
Oleh Baidiuk's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
204 views

What is a pair of nonces?

From https://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/pictures/ekja03/Mining25.pdf page 10: The bitcoin system is therefore designed to ensure that it takes around ten minutes on average before any miner ...
Erik Kaplun's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
669 views

If a lot of miners start at nonce 0, how are there no ties?

I understand what happens with ties (in the long term, the longest chain wins), however, if a majority of miners start with a nonce of zero, does it just matter who has the fastest hardware, or is ...
Kladskull's user avatar
  • 123
0 votes
1 answer
1k views

What is the correct way to calculate timestamp for a Block(125552)?

I am just learning mining process. Today I learned that we have to find nonce for given block header. And for block header we need timestamp in UTC I took the timestamp data from below link of 125552 ...
V01's user avatar
  • 3
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

If two miners come up with two valid nonces, how does consensus take place?

I am trying to understand how the consensus mechanism works. My understanding is that multiple nonces can satisfy the target hash requirement. What I'm trying to understand now is: if two miners come ...
Amostafa's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
596 views

Process for finding nonce

Assume we have a transaction in hex (tx_hex) and we want to find a nonce such that SHA-256(SHA-256(nonce|| tx_hex)) = new_transaction_id ('||' denotes concatenation) first bits consist of 32 zeros. ...
Paris's user avatar
  • 101
4 votes
4 answers
2k views

Is it possible for an unsolvable block to exist?

Is there a proof that the hashing will always yield a result? Or proof that there exist unsolvable blocks? It's my understanding that even if we hit an unsolvable block that eventually the ...
Addy's user avatar
  • 171
1 vote
1 answer
402 views

Why do miners need a nonce if the timestamp changes the hash of the block?

As the title says. If the timestamp is constantly changing with every guess, why does the miner also include the nonce? Is it because they're mining too fast for the timestamp to change?
user95756's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
322 views

How nonce and diffuculty work?

I struggle to understand one concept behind mining. It would be really great if someone could clarify some things. This is an extract from blockgeeks: From a technical point of view, mining process ...
D-Samp's user avatar
  • 61
0 votes
1 answer
2k views

How are nonces decided in mining?

I know that when I create a new block in a Bitcoin network, I change the nonce value to generate a block. The question is, do you randomly assign the values you assign to nonces? Or do you start with ...
ASH's user avatar
  • 21
3 votes
4 answers
1k views

Why is the probability of finding a winning nonce exactly the same for a new header and a header where you've already tried 1 billion nonces?

I'm referring to this question: When do miners stop waiting for new transactions? More specifically, this statement from the top answer: "suppose you have a block header h1 on which you have ...
JonT's user avatar
  • 33
1 vote
1 answer
3k views

Why is it important that the hash algorithm is puzzle friendly?

I don't understand "PUZZLE FRIENDLY". Here the definition I read: A hash function h is puzzle friendly if for every possible N-bit output value y, if K is chosen from a distribution with high ...
user2304458's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
413 views

nTime rolling is just an optimization for large/fast pools, correct?

Need to confirm my understanding of nTime rolling... It's used to give the miner more options to mine without needing to request more work from the pool, by incrementing the timestamp. However, given ...
The Shoe Shiner's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
329 views

What's an example of an ExtraNonce2 value that would be considered invalid?

I've been learning about mining as part of a pool and using the Stratum protocol to submit completed work back to a pool -- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Stratum_mining_protocol . There is this ...
Dave's user avatar
  • 415
3 votes
2 answers
3k views

How do nonce and difficulty relate?

Good morning, I'm reading about Blockchain technology but I have a couple of questions about the nonce that I cannot find the answers for. I'm hoping someone here will be able to answer them. i) ...
vasimmahmood's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
490 views

Understanding the Hash Function

Can someone please explain in detail the components of the final hash that determines the winner of the block? My understanding is that the miners are taking The Merkle Root, The time stamp, The ...
Adam Smith's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
267 views

How finding a working nonce says anyting about the validity of an initial transaction

I am by no means an expert, nor a cryptographer, but I would be interested in knowning a little bit more than what happens at the end of the following chain of events. What happens at the end of the ...
Stefano Lombardi's user avatar
5 votes
4 answers
1k views

Why search for a nonce linearly (+1) vs searching only even or odd nonces?

As a solo miner, you have the disadvantage of a minuscule hash rate compared to mining pools. Is it not possible to searching for only even nonces? Of course you risk the chance of missing the nonce, ...
aitee's user avatar
  • 53
0 votes
3 answers
409 views

What happens if everyone discovers much faster way of solving hash function problem (mining)?

The question is not about how bitcoin mining works, but rather how bitcoin system adapts to progress in ability to tackle proof-of-work problems. Suppose that proof-of-work problems used for bitcoin ...
Guest-I's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
334 views

Mining Process - Transactions Selection

I started reading about Bitcoin a few weeks ago. Reading most the information and watching videos on the web, I though I understood about the mining process. However, I was shocked when I realized ...
JRbarros's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
82 views

Is there a way to estimate the number of unfound nonces?

I've heard anecdotally that the ability to find nonces is much harder than it once was. This implied that there was a fixed number of nonces in the Bitcoin system, and a large number of them have been ...
hawkeye's user avatar
  • 169
0 votes
1 answer
183 views

How to check two hashes are equal using block data and the nonce?

This is my first question on this community (the 100 points were just given to me by the site). The information given is from a block i found looking from the docs api. What am supposed to do with the ...
George Pamfilis's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
141 views

Will skipping nonce enchance mining performance given there's more resourceful miner

As most miner program start with 0 nonce and increment from there, given there are many resourceful miners who will also compete for the same desirable nonce: Everyone is mining at [0 ~ LARGE_RANGE] (...
user52979's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
25k views

What is a nonce?

When I see the block info on blockchain, I see that there is a field named "nonce", I could not find any relevant information on web regarding what a nonce is. Please explain what a nonce is what is ...
GypsyCosmonaut's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
333 views

New transaction, merkle tree change, when to decide what to include in new block

As I understand the merkle tree hash is a (semi)unique hash of the combination of the new transactions and the previous blocks hash. I'm assuming this hash changes when a new transaction is added to ...
BlockChange's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
596 views

How is the mempool incorporated in the calculation of the block hash?

So I've been reading about how the nonce is calculated. There is one part that I don't get. So there is a mempool, and each node (or mining node) takes a part (or the whole part) of that mempool, ...
Mostafa Zamani's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
436 views

Maximum # of hashes for finding a block?

Since nonce is a 32 bit number, the maximum value of nonce can only be 4,294,967,296. So, if a miner doesn't find the target hash within this number, what happens?
galahad's user avatar
  • 201
2 votes
1 answer
275 views

Why did they have to expand the nonce value range?

My understanding is that at a certain point, once hardware passed the 4 GH/s level, the 4 billion possible values for the nonce became insufficient in bitcoin mining, because a good rig could exhaust ...
temporary_user_name's user avatar
8 votes
4 answers
11k views

What is the precise nonce finding protocol?

There are many descriptions of what mining is, but none of them describe it exactly. From what I gather: Mining means finding a nonce c such that for some information s the hash value h(s||c) ...
Erik Vesterlund's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
413 views

Are blocks sent only after finding nonce?

One of the concerns with increasing the block size is that it may get orphaned more often due to network latency in sending the big block. Why can't miners send the block without the nonce as soon as ...
balki's user avatar
  • 295
-1 votes
2 answers
551 views

Bitcoin (and other crypto-coins) nonce loop

I recently started to pay attention to what's going on at crypto-markets and, being developer for a long time, decided to take a look at the software we have out there in public access. So I have a ...
Alex D's user avatar
  • 103
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

Given a block, is there a list of all hashes for all possible 2^32 nonce values?

I am working in a computational research lab, and we're taking a look at Bitcoin. I'm trying to develop a simulation of Bitcoin mining for a nonexistent computer architecture. I want to simulate the ...
James Mishra's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

Mining software and pool tricks

Just changing the nonce of a block to be mined is not enough to cover enough hashes to solve it. What are the most common tricks used by the mining software and pools in order to create enough getwork ...
ThePiachu's user avatar
  • 43.2k
25 votes
1 answer
16k views

When a block is "discovered" how is the nonce determined?

I know that a block is based on a random number called a nonce, but if that number is random and unknown to the miner, how is that number actually verified as the correct nonce and not some arbitrary ...
Andrew's user avatar
  • 251
9 votes
4 answers
397 views

How cooperative or competitive is the mining process?

As each miner works out which nonces it has tried, does it notify the network so that energy isn't wasted on re-processing the same thing by each node? Or is it totally competitive with everyone for ...
Andrew Vit's user avatar