After the cyber attack #Wannacry, it is not ransomware that hit people a lot but also Bitcoin. Earlier post was just a walkthrough about cryptocurrency. Let's have a detailed look about mining cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrencies are distributed and maintained by peer to peer concept across globe. There are many coins for which the source is also available. More famous coins are Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash coin, Zcash and Ethereum. All transactions made using cryptocurrency must be validated by someone (node in network) so that no fake transaction will be carried out (Think of forged cheque).
For validating the transaction a hash must be cracked. For those who has no idea every transaction will have a secret number hidden in the form of hash, one who cracks the hidden number gets rewarded. The reward is the cryptocurrency. Cracking hash requires enormous amount of computing power since it is purely a brute force analysis.
There are three types of mining: Pool mining, Solo Mining and Cloud mining.
Solo Mining: If you crack a block using your resource you will get a bulk reward, but the probability is very low and if you use low computation machine even after 10 years you won't even earn a penny...
Pool Mining: Preferred by many since we can get a routine income based on your computation power, the greater the computation power the greater the reward, but it involves pool fees that has to be paid.
Cloud Mining: For those who cannot afford for resource they can get the service and get paid for what package they choose during subscription. Imagine it as Azure or any other cloud where we pay for what we use.
The transaction that needs to be validated are in the form of block. A block can contain more transactions. Each time you crack a hash, difficulty of hash increases, so if you maintain same resource but peers across globe are updating their resource then your earning will drastically fall.
Earlier days people used Computer CPU to mine, then they started using GPU which is more powerful than CPU and there are now many ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) available for mining which are capable of only mining, they cant do any other job.
Can you imagine what is the world power used for Bitcoin mining... Its 1.4 PetaHash/Sec.. World power changes from currency to currency. Mining is not illegal but holding cryptocurrency is illegal in many countries.
Almost entire Darkweb is driven by Cryptocurrency only and there are also many exchange service available which will take your cryptocurrency and pay you equivalent real money. If you are having any question or suggestion you can post a comment.
P.S: The post is to create awareness and not to create any negative impact.
