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If you are mining Bitcoin, you do not need to calculate the total value of that 64-digit number (the hash). I repeat: You do not need to figure the total value of a hash.

Remember that ELI5 analogy, in which I wrote the number 19 on a piece of paper and put it in a sealed envelope

In Bitcoin mining terms, that metaphorical undisclosed number in the envelope is called the target hash.

What miners are doing with those huge computers and dozens of cooling fans is guessing at the hash. Miners create these guesses by randomly generating as many"nonces" as possible, as quickly as possible. A nonce is short for"number only used once," and also the nonce is the key to generating these 64-bit hexadecimal numbers I keep talking about.

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The first miner whose nonce generates a hash that is less than or equal to the target hash is awarded credit for completing that obstruct, and is awarded the spoils of 12.5 BTC. .

In theory you can achieve the Exact Same goal by rolling a 16-sided die 64 days to arrive at random numbers, but why on earth would you want to do this

The screenshot below, taken by the site Blockchain.info, might help you put all of this information together in a glance. You're looking at a summary of everything that happened when obstruct 490163 was mined. The nonce that generated the "winning" hash was 731511405. The goal hash is shown on the top.

As you see here, their contribution to the Bitcoin community is they confirmed 1768 transactions for this block. If you really want to find all 1768 of those transactions for this block, go to this webpage and scroll down to the heading"Transactions." .

There is no minimum goal, but there's a maximum target determined by the Bitcoin Protocol. No goal can be greater than this number:

Here are some examples of randomized hashes and the standards for whether they will lead to achievement for the miner:

You would need to find a fast mining rig or, more realistically, see join a mining pool--a bunch of miners who combine their computing power and split the mined bitcoin. Mining pools are somewhat comparable to people Powerball clubs whose members purchase lottery tickets en masse and consent to discuss any winnings. A disproportionately high number of cubes are mined by pools rather than by individual miners. .

In other words, it's literally just a numbers game.  You cannot guess the pattern or make a prediction based on previous target hashes. The difficulty level of the most recent block at the time of writing is 2,874,674,234,416, i.e. the chance of any given nonce producing a hash beneath the target is 1 in 2,874,674,234,416--significantly less than 1 in two trillion. .

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The aforementioned website Cryptocompare delivers a helpful calculator that allows you to plug in numbers like your hash speed, power prices etc. to estimate the costs and benefits.

Mining rewards are paid to the miner who discovers a solution to the puzzle first, and the probability that a participant is going to be the one to find the solution is equivalent to the portion of the total mining energy on the network.  Participants which have a small percentage of their mining capability stand a very small chance of discovering the next block on their own.  For instance, a mining card that one could purchase for a couple thousand dollars would represent less than 0.001percent of the network's mining energy.  With such a tiny chance at finding the next block, it might be a long time before that miner finds a block, and the difficulty going up makes things even worse.  The miner may never recoup their investment.  The answer to this problem is mining pools.  Mining pools are operated by third parties and coordinate groups of miners.  By working together in a swimming pool browse around these guys and sharing the payouts amongst participants, miners can find a steady flow of bitcoin starting the day they trigger their miner.  Statistics on a few of the mining pools can be seen on Blockchain.info. .

Sure. As mentioned, the easiest way to acquire Bitcoin is to purchase it on an exchange such as Coinbase.com. Alternately, you can consistently leverage the"pickaxe plan". This is based on the old saw that during the 1848 California gold rush, the smart investment was not to pan for gold, but instead to make the pickaxes used for mining.

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In a crypto context, the pickaxe equivalent are a company that manufactures equpiment utilized for Bitcoin mining. You can look into companies which make ASICs miners or GPU miners. .