Читать книгу Cryptocurrency All-in-One For Dummies - Peter Kent, Kiana Danial - Страница 151

Ethereum is kept running by a network of computers all over the world that are processing the contracts and securing the network. These computers are sometimes referred to as nodes, and they’re mining crypto Ether.

In order to reward individuals for the time and cost involved in mining, there is a prize of five Ethers about every 12 seconds. The prize is given to the node that was able to create the latest block in the Ethereum blockchain.

All new blocks have a list of the latest transactions. The proof-of-work consensus algorithm guarantees that prizes are won most often by nodes with the most computational power. Computers that aren’t as powerful can win, too — it just takes longer. If you want to try your hand at mining Ether, you can do it with your home computer, but it will take a very long time to successfully mine a block and win Ether.