Book Image

Bitcoin Essentials

By : Albert Szmigielski
Book Image

Bitcoin Essentials

By: Albert Szmigielski

Overview of this book

Blockchain is being billed as the technology of the future. Bitcoin is the first application of that technology. Mining is what makes it all possible. Exploring mining from a practical perspective will help you make informed decisions about your mining setup. Understanding what the future may hold for blockchains, and therefore for mining, will help you position yourself to take advantage of the impending changes. This practical guide starts with an introduction to Bitcoin wallets, as well as mining hardware and software. You will move on to learn about different mining techniques using the CPU, GPU, FPGA, and ultimately the ASIC as an example. After this, you will gain an insight into solo mining and pool mining, and see the differences between the two. The book will then walk you through large-scale mining and the challenges faced during such operations. Finally, you will take a look into the future to see a world where blockchain-based applications are commonplace and mining is ubiquitous.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Bitcoin Essentials
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Large Scale Mining overview


Bitcoin mining can be a profitable endeavor. Currently, the reward for finding a block is 25 BTC or about 10,000 US dollars at today's market price (Jan 2016). This reward is dispensed every 10 minutes on average. Financial reward is the main reason behind the emergence of Bitcoin mining on an industrial scale. In the last 2-3 years, a few entities have entered into the business of large-scale mining. The miners attempt to gain economies of scale, trying to find the sweet spot where costs are minimized to the optimum level.

Industrial miners face almost the same issues as data centers: access to relatively cheap power, good network access, access to latest hardware, and stable political climate. Then there are the demands of installing a lot of computing hardware inside a building: cooling, monitoring, and maintenance. To make things more difficult, miners get paid in bitcoins but their costs are in fiat currencies (Dollars, Euros, Kronas, and so on).

Note

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