Cryptocurrency Mining: How It Works, Who Does It, and What You Need to Know
When you hear cryptocurrency mining, the process of validating blockchain transactions and adding them to the public ledger by solving cryptographic puzzles. Also known as blockchain mining, it's the engine that keeps Bitcoin and other proof-of-work coins running without a central bank. It’s not magic—it’s math, electricity, and hardware working together to secure networks.
At the heart of it is proof-of-work, a consensus mechanism that forces miners to prove they’ve done computational work before a new block is accepted. This isn’t just theory—it’s what stopped early Bitcoin from being hacked. Every 10 minutes, miners compete to find a number called a nonce, a random value that, when combined with transaction data and hashed, produces a result meeting the network’s target. The mining difficulty, a dynamic adjustment that changes every 2,016 blocks to keep Bitcoin’s block time steady, makes sure this doesn’t get too easy or too hard. As of 2025, Bitcoin’s hash rate, the total computing power used to mine Bitcoin hit 1 ZH/s. That’s a billion billion calculations per second. If you think that’s insane, it’s supposed to be. The higher the hash rate, the harder it is for anyone to take over the network.
Most people assume mining is only for big farms with warehouses full of machines. But that’s not the whole story. In 2025, mining still happens on small scales—people running rigs in garages, farmers using excess solar power, even developers testing new hardware. It’s not just about profit anymore. It’s about decentralization. Every miner, no matter how small, adds to the network’s resilience. And with energy costs rising and regulations tightening, the smart miners now focus on efficiency, not brute force. They track nonce range, the pool of possible values miners test to find the winning hash and adjust hardware settings to squeeze out every extra hash per second.
What you’ll find in the posts below isn’t fluff. It’s real talk about what’s actually happening in mining right now—from how Bitcoin’s hash rate could hit nearly 7 EH/s by 2030, to why some mining rigs are now just sitting idle because the math doesn’t add up. You’ll see how mining difficulty changes, why some coins are no longer worth mining, and how tools like nonce range and hash rate projections shape decisions. No hype. No promises of quick riches. Just the facts behind the machines.
Block Reward Economics: How Bitcoin and Ethereum Incentivize Network Security
Block reward economics power blockchain security through cryptocurrency incentives. Bitcoin uses halvings to control supply; Ethereum uses staking and fee burns. Understanding how rewards work is key to knowing why blockchains stay secure.
- January 14 2025
- Terri DeLange
- 13 Comments