All transactions made with cryptocurrency are entered into blocks as in the cash book. Each block can only contain a number of parameters defined in the program code. When the block is full, the next block is created. In order not to switch blocks in order, the new block initially contains the information in the previous block at the end.
The blocks that make up the blockchain are created one by one. For this process, many computers have to work together to solve a complex mathematical task. The difficulty of this task increases with the length of the blockchain and the number of its blocks – and with it the computing power required.
All computers in the network are solving the task. The first person to solve the block closes the block and receives a specified number of bitcoins as a reward. This is the half with each half. The first halving occurred in 2012, when the number of bitcoins received by successful miners dropped from 50 to 25. Now, successful miners receive only 6.25 bitcoins per crypto block.
The higher the number of blocks, the higher the mining complexity
In the early days of Bitcoin 2009, due to the small number of blocks, the computing power and speed of medium-powered computers were sufficient to solve the computational task and create additional blocks.
Mathematical tasks are now so complex that a network of many specially configured mining computers has enough power to solve these challenging tasks. Because this process is very labor intensive for computers, this process is also called “Proof of Work” (PoW), which means something like “Proof of Work”.
The “Proof of Work” method was first introduced by researchers in the early 1990s. They wanted to reduce spam via email. Their idea, to put it in simplified terms: Anyone who has to solve computational problems to send messages through a service and thus expend energy and therefore costs similar to those of postage will think twice about sending spam.
Today, however, “proof of work” is also subject to criticism in blockchain circles. Since only one computer from the network eventually receives the reward, but all the computers in the network solve the task, the Proof of Work system is particularly a waste of energy.
Therefore, many cryptocurrencies are already working with an alternative. An energy-efficient alternative to Proof of Work (PoW) is the so-called Proof of Stake (PoS) method. With the PoS method, one computer is enough to create the next block. All participants in the digital currency network have to agree only on which computer and user must solve the block cryptographic task.
