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There's tons of people here on HN that know this stuff by heart, but as far as I understood: 1) I guess so, the blockchain contains the bitcoin transactions.

by Udik 10y ago

There's tons of people here on HN that know this stuff by heart, but as far as I understood: 1) I guess so, the blockchain contains the bitcoin transactions. 2) In order to add a block to the blockchain, you need to mix the block's fingerprint with a random value and shake, hoping for the mix to get a special and very recognisable appearance. If it doesn't work, you have to try a new random number (the block's fingerprint of course stays the same). When you've found a good number (which takes a lot of tries and luck) you raise a flag and say "hey, found it", and you can add your block to the chain. Then you're rewarded with some amount of bitcoins that are created from nothing (hence mined). I don't have clear how this reward is granted, whether it's already written in the block you're trying to add or in a new one, and in which form.

mosselman 10y ago
Thank you for your explanation. It certainly clears a few things up. With regards to "hoping for the mix to get a special and very recognisable appearance". What happens here concretely? What would 'very recognisable' entail?
- Udik 10y ago
  Very late reply, but in case anybody sees this. The "shaken mix" of fingerprint + random number must produce a number that is lower than a certain target number. The most visible consequence of this is that the accepted numbers must begin with a string of zeros (as the number of digits is fixed, as in 0003 is lower than 0123). Example: Not a good mix: 1312af178c253f84028d480a6adc1e25e81caa44c749ec81976192e2ec934c64 A good mix: 0000000000000000057fcc708cf0130d95e27c5819203e9f967ac56e4df598ee This "shaken mix" is a SHA-256 hash of the current block plus a random number. SHA-256 is an algorithm that generates a "fingerprint" (called "hash") of a block of data, in such a way that it is not possible to determine, from the fingerprint itself, which data might have generated it [otherwise it would be possible to start from (a set of) desired fingerprints and calculate back to the set of possible blocks that could generate them].

by Udik 10y ago

mosselman 10y ago

Thank you for your explanation. It certainly clears a few things up. With regards to "hoping for the mix to get a special and very recognisable appearance". What happens here concretely? What would 'very recognisable' entail?

Udik 10y ago
Very late reply, but in case anybody sees this. The "shaken mix" of fingerprint + random number must produce a number that is lower than a certain target number. The most visible consequence of this is that the accepted numbers must begin with a string of zeros (as the number of digits is fixed, as in 0003 is lower than 0123). Example: Not a good mix: 1312af178c253f84028d480a6adc1e25e81caa44c749ec81976192e2ec934c64 A good mix: 0000000000000000057fcc708cf0130d95e27c5819203e9f967ac56e4df598ee This "shaken mix" is a SHA-256 hash of the current block plus a random number. SHA-256 is an algorithm that generates a "fingerprint" (called "hash") of a block of data, in such a way that it is not possible to determine, from the fingerprint itself, which data might have generated it [otherwise it would be possible to start from (a set of) desired fingerprints and calculate back to the set of possible blocks that could generate them].