mining

Vitalik Buterin highlights the contrasting cost structures of Bitcoin mining and AI inference, suggesting potential implications for energy resource allocation and industry competition.

Hashrate is the speed at which equipment performs hashing operations during mining. The metric reflects the computing power of an individual device or of the entire network and directly affects its security.

A mining rig is a computing device for mining cryptocurrency, most often built on the basis of a computer with several graphics cards. The chance of receiving a block reward depends on its power.

FPGA is a field-programmable gate array, a semiconductor chip that can be configured for specific tasks after it has been manufactured. In mining, it occupies an intermediate position between graphics cards and ASICs.

Difficulty is a network parameter that governs how hard it is to find a new block. It automatically adjusts to the network's total power, keeping the block issuance time stable.

Solo mining is independent cryptocurrency mining in which a miner works alone and does not pool their power with other participants. The entire reward for a found block goes to them in full.

Suprnova is a mining pool that combines the computing power of participants for the joint mining of various cryptocurrencies. The pool simplifies mining and makes income more even.

Scrypt is a hashing algorithm underlying a number of cryptocurrencies. It was created to be more memory-intensive and was originally designed to resist specialized hardware.

A stale block is a block or unit of a miner's work that has lost relevance because the network or pool has already accepted another result. Such work brings no reward.

A mining pool is an association of miners who jointly search for a new block and split the reward in proportion to the power they contribute. This increases the chances of a stable income.