Bitcoin mining is a worldwide race to find a rare hash. The winner adds the next block and earns new bitcoin plus fees. Try our mining simulator.
A lottery with a purpose
Miners collect waiting transactions from the mempool into a candidate block. Then they repeatedly hash the block header, changing a number each time, until the hash comes out below a target. It's pure trial and error, like rolling dice until you get a very rare result.
What miners earn
The winner's block includes a The coinbase transaction paying them the The block reward: newly created bitcoin plus all the fees in the block.
What mining does for Bitcoin
- Orders transactions into one agreed history.
- Makes history expensive to rewrite: undoing a block means redoing its work and all the work after it. See Proof of work.
- Distributes new coins on a fixed schedule. See Why there will only be 21 million bitcoin.
Can I mine at home?
Technically yes, but today's mining uses specialized machines called ASICs and cheap electricity. A laptop has essentially no chance of finding a block alone. Most miners join Mining pools to earn small, steady payouts.
Is Bitcoin mining profitable?
It depends on three numbers: electricity price, machine efficiency and the bitcoin price. Large miners pay very little for power and run the newest machines. At typical home electricity prices, mining usually costs more than it earns, so most people who want bitcoin simply buy it.
Mining and the environment
Mining uses a lot of electricity, and where it comes from matters. Because miners can switch off instantly and set up anywhere, many seek stranded or surplus energy, such as flared gas or excess hydro, which would otherwise go unused. Estimates of mining's energy mix vary between studies.
Key takeaways
- Mining is repeated hashing until a block hash falls below the target.
- The winner earns the block subsidy plus fees.
- Mining secures the transaction history and issues new coins.
Common questions
Do miners solve complex maths problems?
Not really. They guess numbers and hash them as fast as possible. The work is hard because it is pure trial and error.
How much energy does mining use?
A lot, and the amount changes with price and hardware. The energy cost is what makes rewriting history expensive.
Can I mine Bitcoin on my phone?
No. A phone is billions of times slower than specialised miners and would never find a block.
How long does it take to mine one bitcoin?
There's no fixed time per coin. The whole network produces 3.125 BTC per block, about every 10 minutes, shared among whoever finds blocks.