Mining Bitcoin has got complicated than ever before, and there
Mining Bitcoin has got complicated than ever before, and there are numerous factors which govern the mining process. Earlier mining process was intended to keep the Bitcoin network decentralized and the miners were rewarded with certain Block Rewards.
If we talk about 2011 when the Bitcoin phenomenon was not that widely known, mining it was simple and you could do it even via a simple home PC. But as of today, it might require you specific mining rigs and enough electrical energy to mine a block of Bitcoin.
In order to mine one BTC, there are various factors one need to consider, and the time taken to mine that might differ from place to place.
On the Bitcoin Blockchain, every 10 minutes one Block gets mined, to mine that single Block, the current reward is 12.5 BTC.
Let us look at various factors that govern Bitcoin mining.
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Hash Rate
Every transaction on the block is encrypted with a 256-bit cryptographic hash function, and your computer needs to run simultaneous codes to solve this function. The computational power required in solving the hash function is measured in Hash rates.
People realized they can increase the power of their computer with specific hardware, but the time to mine a single block is kept constant at 10 minutes so that people cannot manipulate the hash rate to mine the block faster. The time of Block is kept constant by varying the mining difficulty.
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Mining Difficulty
Mining difficulty is a constant which has increased over the years to maintain the fixed Bitcoin Block time of 10 minutes. Imagine computers in 2011 and computers of today. How advanced they have got, but still the time of mining the Block is 10 minutes. This is done to ensure that people won’t manipulate the hash rates to get the Block Reward.
In the latter part of 2018, it was reported that the hash rate has increased five hashes in a matter of few weeks. The same increase in hashrate took 8 years, shows you how powerful the ASIC mining chip based mining rigs have become. There was a similar spike in the hash rate when the mining rigs transitioned from CPU to GPU.
Similarly to keep up with the increasing hash rates, mining difficulty is increased accordingly as well. The mining difficulty increases every 2016th block.
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The Time Required to Mine One BTC
You might have got a better understanding of various factors governing the Bitcoin mining process. So, to give the answer about how long does it take to mine one BTC, the answer still remains the same, it depends on various factors like
- What kind of mining hardware you are using
- How much hashrate does your mining rig generate
- How long does our mining rig run for
One Block of Bitcoin gets mined every 10 minutes and since the competition is so high, the Block reward of 12.5 BTC gets distributed among the peers depending on their hashrate contribution to the process.
Most of the Bitcoin mining is overtaken by mining farms and mining pools, so in order to gain some Bitcoin you must join one or the other mining pool and contribute whatever hash rate you can.
Using traditional PCs or even the GPU rigs might take months before you can earn any Bitcoin, as ASIC chip are dominating the Bitcoin mining scene now. Individual mining is already a downside as it can’t compete with large corporates with hundreds of latest mining rigs running 24*7
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