What Is Mining? Proof-of-Work Explained
Miners compete with computing power to add blocks and earn rewards, securing the network — Bitcoin's proof-of-work.
What Miners Do
Miners use specialized hardware to repeatedly attempt a math puzzle. Whoever solves it first earns the right to add the next block of transactions and receives newly minted coins plus fees. This "guessing" burns huge compute, making it extremely costly to rewrite the ledger — which secures the network.
Difficulty and Halving
The network auto-adjusts difficulty to keep block times steady (about 10 minutes for Bitcoin). Roughly every four years the block reward "halves," cutting new supply in half. This is the core mechanism behind Bitcoin's scarcity.
