Demystifying Blockchain Mining
In popular media, "mining" is often portrayed as computers solving arbitrary complex mathematical homework problems. In reality, mining is simply the process of assembling pending transactions into candidate blocks and generating cryptographic proofs of validation.
The Evolution of Mining Hardware
- CPUs (2009–2010): Early Bitcoin could easily be mined with ordinary desktop processors.
- GPUs (2010–2012): Graphics cards with thousands of parallel arithmetic logic units vastly outperformed CPUs.
- FPGAs (2012–2013): Field-Programmable Gate Arrays allowed custom logic optimization.
- ASICs (2013–Present): Application-Specific Integrated Circuits designed with microchips manufactured solely to perform SHA-256 calculations.
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