Читать книгу Cryptocurrency Mining For Dummies - Peter Kent - Страница 47

When you compare cryptocurrency mining to gold mining, why the process is referred to as mining becomes clear. In both forms of mining, the miners put in work and are rewarded with an uncirculated asset. In gold mining, naturally occurring gold that was outside the economy is dug up and becomes part of the gold circulating within the economy. In cryptocurrency mining, work is performed, and the process ends with new cryptocurrency being created and added to the blockchain ledger. In both cases, miners, after receiving their reward — the mined gold or the newly created cryptocurrency — usually sell it to the public to recoup their operating costs and get their profit, placing the new currency into circulation.

The cryptocurrency miner’s work is different from that of a gold miner, of course, but the result is much the same: Both bring a new money supply to the market. For cryptocurrency mining, all of the work happens on a mining computer or rig connected to the cryptocurrency network — no burro riding or gap-toothed gold panners required!

In the trustless cryptocurrency world, you can still trust the cryptocurrency community and its mechanisms to ensure that the blockchain contains an accurate and immutable — unchangeable — record of cryptocurrency transactions. Cryptocurrencies are established using a set of software rules that ensure that the system can be trusted, and the mining process is part of this system that allows everyone to trust the blockchain.

Cryptocurrencies have no central bank printing new money. Instead, miners dig up new currency according to a preset coin-issue schedule and release it into circulation in a process called mining.