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> Only the miner who discovers new bitcoins gets "rewarded" by the system And that reward is really just compensation for keeping the whole system difficult to
by nas 14y ago
> Only the miner who discovers new bitcoins gets "rewarded" by the system
And that reward is really just compensation for keeping the whole system difficult to attack. Mining is not cheap, you need expensive hardware and electricity. I like to think of a miner as a transaction notarizer (e.g. like a notary public). Miner is definitely the wrong term, IMHO.
- chongli 14y agoWasn't mining really cheap when it first started? Who owns all those bitcoins now? The early-adopters have the lion's share of the wealth.
- ewillbefull 14y agoThat's how it works, the difficulty scales with the amount of computing power in the network. If it didn't, the entire currency supply would have been mined already. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply The real conspiracy theorists are the people who (seemingly without ANY experience and explanation) accuse Bitcoin of being a ponzi scheme or whatever else. Ask me a technical question about it and I can explain _anything_, after researching it casually for years. This is open-source so you guys better be able to back up your accusations.