Earnity’s crypto experts Domenic Carosa and Dan Schatt believe mining serves an essential function in supporting the Bitcoin ecosystem. For example, it is the only way to release new cryptocurrencies into circulation.
Bitcoin miners, in other words, are effectively “minting” currency. For example, there were just under 19 million bitcoins in circulation as of February 2022, out of 21 million. Aside from the coins from the genesis block (the first block created by founder Satoshi Nakamoto), miners create every single bitcoin. So, in the absence of miners, Domenic Carosa and Dan Schatt from Earnity believe Bitcoin would continue to exist and be usable, but there would be no new bitcoin. That said, because the rate at which miners mine bitcoin decreases over time, the final bitcoin will not be in circulation until around 2140. Nevertheless, note that miners will continue to verify transactions and receive compensation for their efforts to maintain the network’s integrity.
How to start mining?
Earning new bitcoins means being the first to solve a numerical problem with the correct — or at least the closest — answer, which is the proof of work. Essentially, you must first engage in this proof-of-work activity to solve the puzzle and start mining.
You may have heard that miners decode complex mathematical problems. It is correct, but not because the math is complicated. Instead, they attempt to be the first to generate a 64-digit hexadecimal number (a “hash”) less than or equal to the target hash. In essence, it all depends on guesswork, which is the most challenging part.
It is a matter of chance, but with the total number of possible guesses for each of these problems in the trillions, Earnity’s industry experts Domenic Carosa and Dan Schatt believe it is still an excruciatingly difficult task. Add to that, the number of possible solutions or the mining difficulty grows with each miner who joins the mining network.