20
votes
Accepted
What is "buying hash rate" and how could it be profitable?
"Buying hash rate" is a synonym for a concept called cloud mining. In proof of work-based consensus systems, mining refers to a process of expending computational power to secure the network....
- 72.6k
12
votes
Where to find exact number of hashes required to mine most recent block?
You cannot know how many hashes were actually performed for every block, because non-winning hashes aren't published.
There is however a simple formula to compute the expected number of hashes a block ...
- 102k
9
votes
What will happen to Bitcoin when it takes years to complete a calculation?
Mining is a self-adjusting system. The difficulty only rises in accordance to the available mining power. Hence, it can neither go to a difficulty where it will take months for a block to be found, ...
- 72.6k
8
votes
How does merged mining work?
Satoshi himself seems to be the inventor of merged mining. In his words (bitcointalk.org):
I think it would be possible for BitDNS to be a completely separate network and separate block chain, yet ...
- 776
7
votes
Accepted
What precisely does the commonly reported network hash rate refer to?
The number reported is an estimation of the number of block headers iterated through by all miners on the network.
This means it refers to double-SHA256 hashes performed, not broken down to ...
- 102k
6
votes
What is "buying hash rate" and how could it be profitable?
Although the particulars involve bitcoin, the central issue in this question is more of a Money SE question. You're being asked to invest in [industry], you just have to put up the capital, and [...
- 290
5
votes
Accepted
Why is the hashrate getting so high?
Miners are competing to find valid blocks because each block allows the successful miner to collect a mining reward. The mining reward consists of an amount of newly generated coins as defined by the ...
- 72.6k
5
votes
Accepted
What are the possible Doomsday scenarios for the 2016 Halving from 25 to 12.5 BTC per block solved?
I think you might be referring to the hypothesis that a large portion of the mining power would switch off right at the halving. This is theorized to kick off a chain reaction:
Lower network hash ...
- 72.6k
5
votes
Accepted
How miners with less power win?
That said, when the next block is being mined, again the same person will win because of his computing power.
No. Higher mining power means just higher chances to mine a block.
If there are 3 miners:...
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5
votes
Accepted
How do we know which miner or pool mined a block?
We know which miner/pool mined a block only if that miner/pool chose to identify themselves. Most commonly, they do this by inserting their name or other recognizable signature in the block's ...
- 23k
5
votes
Why has BCH not received a 51% attack yet?
Because of the cost, specifically the opportunity cost.
If a miner has 10% of the BTC hashrate, then if they pointed all of that mining power to BCH, they would still be losing money. With 50% of the ...
- 68.5k
5
votes
Accepted
Are there still miners or mining pool which refuse to implement SegWit?
No, in the past year, there were only 15 non-empty-non-segwit blocks mined which account for less than 0.03% of all blocks.
Non-empty blocks without segwit transactions
I've looked up the last ...
- 72.6k
5
votes
Accepted
Is the 'real barrier' to attack bitcoin's consensus 33.34%, rather than 51%?
In this proposed attack, you need more than just hash power. However, if you assume that you can partition the network as this attack imagines, you need no hashing power at all.
If I can split the ...
- 51.4k
4
votes
Why can't they use super computers to mine all the bitcoins?
There are two reasons why they can't flash mine all bitcoins: Difficulty and specialized hardware.
First, the pace of Bitcoin creation is limited. The protocol defines how difficult it is to find ...
- 72.6k
4
votes
Accepted
When did the ASIC mining era begin?
Jeff Garzik received an Avalon miner on january 30th, 2013 and posted pictures at http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/01/once-upon-time-in-china-package-shipped.html and http://garzikrants.blogspot....
- 8,419
4
votes
Accepted
The probability that the entire network generates at least two blocks within 10 minutes?
Since current hashrate and current difficulty level should be matched up usually, we can disregard them. (Although, we could easily accommodate them if they are diverging as well.)
Finding blocks is ...
- 72.6k
4
votes
Why the nonce is difficult to find in Bitcoin?
Miners try many block candidates per second. Every candidate is different in some way, but the nonce is only one of the ways in which they differ. Other ways include the timestamp, and - most ...
- 102k
4
votes
How is the hashrate calculated?
As RedGrittyBrick already wrote, the difficulty to create new blocks is adjusted every 2016 blocks. The difficulty provides an expected amount of hashes performed to find a block, which allows a ...
- 72.6k
3
votes
Accepted
How many Hashes are in a single Terrahash
Tera is an SI prefix that means 1 trillion.
That means 1 terahash/s means 1,000,000,000,000 hashes per second.
- 102k
3
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to know the total hashpower backing a currency?
Yes.
Generally cryptocurrency network mining difficulty is dynamically adjusted by the current available hashing power. Thus, the hashing power must be known. This information is usually disseminated ...
- 2,437
3
votes
Accepted
Merchant tool that will dynamically adjust the # of required confirmations based on network hashrate data
Pools can lie about their hashrate, and not claim to have solved blocks that were actually solved by them when. I would propose that this is the wrong method of dynamically choosing a confirm count.
...
- 453
3
votes
What will happen to Bitcoin when it takes years to complete a calculation?
The cost of mining has actually decreased massively since CPU mining, which consumed something ridiculous like 5,000 Watts per GH/s. Today's best 16nm chips are speculated at running at less that 0.1 ...
- 94
3
votes
Halving reward, price effects?
Will Bitcoin switch to a faster block rhythm?
No, the Blockchain will not change the number of blocks produced. That would require the difficulty retargeting rules to be changed, but the difficulty ...
- 72.6k
3
votes
Accepted
BitCoin Price Index -Studies on Relation to Network Hashrate and Block Difficulty?
I know of one researcher off hand who has worked in this area, Adam Hayes. You can find his papers on the subject at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2648366
http://www....
- 14k
3
votes
Why doesn't the same miner always win?
Every miner is working a on different block. While they share some of the same data, there are several parts of a block which are completely up to the miner to decide, and those differences make the ...
- 68.5k
3
votes
Is it possible to know the total hashpower backing a currency?
There are really two different measurements you have to be concerned with for a particular blockchain:
The current difficulty (how much hashing power is currently going into single blocks)
The total ...
- 8,822
3
votes
Accepted
How does Bitcoin Gigahashes Convert to Ethereum Megahashes?
Bitcoin and Ethereum use different hashing algorithms. General consumer hardware (like a CPU or GPU) can be easily programmed at a software level to perform either the Bitcoin or the Ethereum (amongst ...
- 196
3
votes
How harder is it on average to find a block with one more zero in its hash?
From Applied Cryptography, by Bruce Schneider (pp. 157-158):
One of the consequences of the second law of thermodynamics is that a certain amount of energy is necessary to represent information. To ...
- 1,011
3
votes
Will Bitcoin scaling affect the amount of hashing power required to keep the network secure?
This is a comment from page 199 of Mastering Bitcoin. I think its meaning is to be interpreted taking into account the two preceding sentences:
Note that the target difficulty is independent of ...
- 193
3
votes
What is "If ghash.io hits 51% people would just leave them?" referring to?
No, the network wouldn't disconnect them. There's no way for that to happen.
Recall that a pool is an association of miners who agree to share the proceeds of their mining; whenever anyone mines a ...
- 23k
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