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Author: Admin | 2025-04-27
Financial crisis happening at the time. For those who'd become distrustful of central governments and banks, Nakamoto's use of "blockchain" technology was highly appealing.A blockchain is a living ledger, or in other words, a continuous, uneditable list that records every transaction that takes place. The goal is to place accountability in the hands of the public, rather than a central bank or government. Proponents of Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) argue that this adds safety, transparency, and independence from the fluctuating value of traditional (fiat) currency.In the early days of Bitcoin, Nakamoto set up a fixed number of bitcoins (21 million) that existed in his code. He wanted to design it similar to actual gold, which derives value from the fact that there's a limited supply of it in the world. While governments can print money (thus driving up inflation), Bitcoin draws its value from supply and demand.You can either obtain bitcoin through bitcoin mining, or purchase it via regular (fiat) money. For the purposes of this blog, we'll be focusing on how to acquire it through the former.What is Bitcoin Mining?Mining for Bitcoin might sound like a treasure hunt, but it's more complicated than simply "digging for gold." And unlike the Gold Rush of 1849, Bitcoin miners are part of an efficient process, not a wild good chase.In the most simple terms, Bitcoin mining is a.) a way that new bitcoins "minted," or, put into circulation, and b.) "the process of verifying and recording new Bitcoin transactions" (per The Balance). Even though Bitcoin is a decentralized currency, there's still a need for verification so that fraud or theft doesn't occur.And as a reward for doing the tricky technical work of verifying, "miners" are rewarded via Bitcoin. It's a pretty good incentive, as miners receive 6.25 Bitcoin (BTC) for their work, which as of today is worth around $238,000. In that sense, it is quite comparable to the California Gold Rush, as the first to verify the transaction gets the reward.Due to a process called "halving" (designed by Satoshi Nakomoto), the number of bitcoins issued every ten minutes is cut in
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