Lecture 5 - Bitcoin Mining

Fifth lecture of the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency technologies online course.
For the accompanying textbook, including the free draft version, see: bitcoinbook.cs.princeton.edu/
In this lecture (click the time to jump to the section):
* The task of Bitcoin miners 0:15
* Mining hardware 10:17
* Energy consumption & ecology 33:38
* Mining pools 50:16
* Mining incentives and strategies 1:04:29

[@JavierSalcedoC]

This course and James Dangelo´s channel is all you need to understand bitcoin

[@europeiptv9733]

ο iview είναι μια πληρωμενη εφαρμογή για Τα ελληνικά συνδρομητικά ξενα καναλια live, τηλεόρασης μέσω ίντερνετΨυχαγωγία - Ταινίες - Ντοκιμαντέρ - Μουσική. Live D TV ΝτοκιμαντέρΕίναι διαθέσιμο για Android,Phone/Tablet,Android, tv box.

[@stachowi]

Fantastic material and instructor. I've been reading about a lot about bitcoin and I've learned a ton from this course. Thanks!

[@pathooser4323]

Simply put in the effort and work needed! People forget the effort and work part and just focus on the rewards instead.

[@1st-Impressions]

Note to Editor: You have missed an edit around 41 minutes.

[@inpace1]

Doesn't bother. Actually it is good to hear him rephrase. :)

[@rbonnelly]

Great stuff!

[@therecyclingguy256]

Bitcoin is absolutely awesome. About to pick up a few more books on the subject.📚 I'm completely fascinated.😎☕

[@andrewdoepker5767]

Hey, I have been loving these lectures! Would you say the lectures are still correct 2 years later or has bitcoin changed significantly? Are miner rewards still the same?

[@whatamievendoing]

So far, these lectures have gotten me fascinated with altcoins. Really enjoying it so far! Can't wait for more lectures!

[@andrewwertheim]

The graph at ~ min 10 is a little misleading. For clarification it should be explicitly noted that any particular miner is in fact finding blocks slower and slower over the course of the 2016 block period (unless she adds hashing power), however the *network* is finding blocks faster (usually) because of the increase in ash power

[@shymaaarafat1342]

If u more familiar with the topic, do people keep previous SHA-256 results they hashed before and check if someone has previously mined this value before they start hashing? In this case, mining will get faster with time?

[@andrewwertheim]

@@shymaaarafat1342 There's no need to do that for two reasons. First, since there is basically zero % chance that two hashes will be equivalent in the first place. Second, it would take longer computationally, to compare each hash with a dataset of previous hashes. It's much faster just to continue hashing until you find an output that satisfies the difficulty target.

[@chautrongan6183]

THANK SIR, GOD BLESS AMERICA AND GREECE-ROMAN.

[@_ashout]

I don't quite understand how you can verify the "almost" hashes in the mining pool section. Wouldn't they also have to send the information that generated the hash? e.g. (nonce...)

[@robkading5274]

I've been wondering about this. Miners will eventually (once all 21M coins were mined) be incentivized to mine by the transaction fees only. We already see a fair number of Tx outputs that aren't economically viable (transaction fees are too high). Short of waiting for the exchange rate, are there no incentives to clear up the 'space debris'?

[@danrnd9519]

I believe the current high transaction fees are because we are near the scalability limit of Bitcoin (about 6.6 transactions per second). If the scalability issue is solved, the transaction fees will go back down (until all coins are mined)

[@OFfic3R1K]

As for what will happen after the block reward is no longer given out, you can read the research paper by Princeton University, one of the authors, Arvind Narayanan, is a lector in this course series You can find the paper here: www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/publications/mining_CCS.pdf Or by searching for: "On the Instability of Bitcoin Without the Block Reward"

[@BluntInnit]

ok was trying to think of how what you have talked about could be exploited and if it is feasible if it can be patched or if there are already mechanisms to prevent them happening. so my idea is if you wait until the fortnightly difficulty has been set then take a copy of the ledger and leave it on an isolated network with a load of pis spoofing mining so that for 2 weeks no blocks are mined and the network hash is very low. at the same time you isolate yintrour whole mining pool from the network and start building from the snapshot you took of the block chain however you build on near misses as well based on the idea that on your closed network the difficulty will go down in 2 weeks meaning that these will become valid blocks. you can carry on including every transaction that occurs in the bitcoin mining real world block chain but will get more blocks so can clear the back log. after 2 weeks your fake raspberry pie bitcoin network will have the difficulty reduced and you add your whole closed mining pool to the closed network instantly introducing the new block chain that you have been preparing for the last 2 weeks as the lower nunces are now all accepted on the closed network. you then carry on with the network remaining closed for 2 weeks meaning that you get to make 4 weeks worth of block chain at a lower difficulty than the real blockchain. then when after 4 weeks if you realease your blockchain onto the real world would it be adopted due to the excessive of amount of extra blocks you created at a lower difficulty level, therefore meaning that you have effectively stolen a month worth of transaction fees and the backlog, lost the miners on the network a month's worth of transaction fees and bitcoin rewards and stolen over a month worth of rewards as you artificially lowered the difficulty. Or would it the rest of the network realise that the nunce was simpler than the existing one and smell a rat before building on the newly introduced chain?

[@therecyclingguy256]

The nodes wont respond.

[@colinwithers1969]

Klondike gold rush was in the Yukon not Alaska.

[@liuzhen2008]

Wow feather forking is scary >.>

[@luanacosta7660]

speed it to 1.5x and thank me later

[@MatthewMershon]

*LIP SMACK*

[@_simmac_]

S M A C C

[@lordswaggity1213]

Hahaha

[@caleb7799]

I know this is not his first video, so he should have watched his previous ones and realized how damn annoying this shit is. I can’t even focus on what he is saying because I’m waiting for the next spit swallow and a smack. What a damn waste.

[@sandrawilliam6700]

I really appreciate hackermotion on telegram is the best ♥️♥️

[@swaaagquan3540]

Bitcoin uses enough energy across a year to power 3.5 million American houses. It can make 7 transaction per second. Insanity.

[@therecyclingguy256]

Hello there, its me from 2020....... Bitcoin is currently mined from mostly surplus energy and renewable energy.

[@shymaaarafat1342]

@@therecyclingguy256 If u r aware of up-to-date techniques, do they still use them as heaters? I mean can an innocent person buy a heater not knowing that they're mining in his house? -What if something went wrong, could this lead to accident fires (people will assume normal precautions of electric heaters, not necessarily the same as a super Computing device) -Could an adversary add a hacking SW or even IC/borad/SIM card, either to steal the mining results or even to spy on this person if he/she is a public figure for example? After all the device must be connected to the internet to deliver mining results, without the customer knowledge

[@therecyclingguy256]

@@shymaaarafat1342 I'm not talking about enthusiasts mining for a hobby....

[@therecyclingguy256]

@@shymaaarafat1342 To answer your first question......A Bitcoin mining machine would serve as a terrible heater.....most home heaters have a safety/killswitch...... halfway thru mining a block the heater will cut off.

[@DK-mq9zf]

Can you stop smacking your lips

[@Chopik1149]

The man is brilliant and, as a courtesy, provides you with a TON of Bitcoin knowledge at no charge whatsoever so you can make more intelligent investment decisions... and all you can do in your small-mindedness is complain about his lips? To show us all how it's supoosed to be done, please send us a link to YOUR latest educational video.

[@caleb7799]

@@Chopik1149 I agree with D K. Unwatchable regardless how grateful for this video you are.