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Topic: What is Bitcoin Mining - a newbie explanation (Read 732 times)

sr. member
Activity: 257
Merit: 251
February 15, 2014, 10:46:45 AM
#12
Quote
This is not generally true.  A sudden increase in mining hash power (more miners) might temporarily distort the confirmation time so that is is faster for a short while, but within 2016 blocks the difficulty will be adjusted and the average confirmation time will return to 10 minutes per block.

So, more miners means more difficult mining, but not faster transaction verifications.


Also, there is a detail that is confusing the way you describe it.

You state:

"Miners get paid twice, once for verifying the transactions and again when they successfully generate new bitcoins."

This makes it sound like a miner gets paid for verifying the transactions even when they don't successfully generate new bitcoins, when the two things are actually tightly tied together.  While the miner gets paid from two different sources (a block subsidy and transaction fees), that is handled with a single payment when "they successfully generate new bitcoins".  So it would be more accurate (and less confusing) to state that upon successfully solving the mining calculation, miners receive a single payment from two sources (from the transaction fees, and from the block subsidy).

Thanks for clarifying that. I'm a bit of a newbie myself to Bitcoin mining so it's good to know.
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 4801
Not too bad.

I did notice one error when you state that:
"More miners means faster transaction verifications and less fraud".

This is not generally true.  A sudden increase in mining hash power (more miners) might temporarily distort the confirmation time so that is is faster for a short while, but within 2016 blocks the difficulty will be adjusted and the average confirmation time will return to 10 minutes per block.

So, more miners means more difficult mining, but not faster transaction verifications.


Also, there is a detail that is confusing the way you describe it.

You state:

"Miners get paid twice, once for verifying the transactions and again when they successfully generate new bitcoins."

This makes it sound like a miner gets paid for verifying the transactions even when they don't successfully generate new bitcoins, when the two things are actually tightly tied together.  While the miner gets paid from two different sources (a block subsidy and transaction fees), that is handled with a single payment when "they successfully generate new bitcoins".  So it would be more accurate (and less confusing) to state that upon successfully solving the mining calculation, miners receive a single payment from two sources (from the transaction fees, and from the block subsidy).

full member
Activity: 378
Merit: 100
GUD VID
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
February 14, 2014, 10:52:06 AM
#9
Great job!
member
Activity: 112
Merit: 10
February 14, 2014, 08:23:32 AM
#8
Great video, always appreciate getting advice out to the new guys (like me)!
sr. member
Activity: 257
Merit: 251
February 14, 2014, 03:51:48 AM
#7
Thanks for the great feedback guys!
member
Activity: 70
Merit: 10
February 14, 2014, 12:54:54 AM
#6
Great Video.
It's quicker to watch a video about Bitcoin mining than read about it.
full member
Activity: 144
Merit: 100
February 13, 2014, 09:01:50 PM
#5
easy to understand
thanks for video
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
February 13, 2014, 08:53:50 PM
#4
I like how you show a home desktop printer for printing out fiat.  Tongue
full member
Activity: 171
Merit: 100
February 13, 2014, 08:01:32 PM
#3
You made this ? its perfect !
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
February 13, 2014, 07:33:10 PM
#2
Just finished my last video about "What is Bitcoin Mining". Hope you like it...

Great video.
Newbies should be able to understand why we need mining after watching it. Smiley
sr. member
Activity: 257
Merit: 251
February 13, 2014, 06:29:49 PM
#1
Just finished my last video about "What is Bitcoin Mining". Hope you like it...
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