Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Bitcoin Technical Support => Topic started by: SOKO-DEKE on September 19, 2022, 11:31:28 AM



Title: *I Need More Explanation On This*
Post by: SOKO-DEKE on September 19, 2022, 11:31:28 AM

I have been going through to learn more about the technical aspect of bitcoin. I came across somethings that are still not yet cleared to me. I have decided to ask here maybe I’ll find a more understanding explanation to it.


1. Does miners get rewarded for their effort (computing power) that have been contributed during mining even if they never get to mine a block?

2. If the owner of the 51% of the total computational power decides to cheat, can he/she change the value of the bitcoin reward (say from 12.5 to 1000 bitcoins) and add them under his account?


Title: Re: *I Need More Explanation On This*
Post by: pooya87 on September 19, 2022, 11:51:29 AM
1. Does miners get rewarded for their effort (computing power) that have been contributed during mining even if they never get to mine a block?
No. The miner gets the reward only if they find the new block otherwise another miner that found it would get the reward for that block. It's a competition after all.
But miners join mining pools to share the work and when the pool finds the block, each miner receives a portion of that reward based on their hash power contribution by that pool.

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2. If the owner of the 51% of the total computational power decides to cheat, can he/she change the value of the bitcoin reward (say from 12.5 to 1000 bitcoins) and add them under his account?
No. Because changing the reward to anything bigger than it is allowed would render the said block invalid and everyone in decentralized bitcoin network would reject/ignore it.


Title: Re: *I Need More Explanation On This*
Post by: LoyceV on September 19, 2022, 12:43:17 PM
2. If the owner of the 51% of the total computational power decides to cheat, can he/she change the value of the bitcoin reward (say from 12.5 to 1000 bitcoins) and add them under his account?
No. Because changing the reward to anything bigger than it is allowed would render the said block invalid and everyone in decentralized bitcoin network would reject/ignore it.
Alternative answer: Yes. And the miner doesn't even need 51% for that. But since his block will be rejected by other nodes, he has created a Fork that most likely has no value because nobody uses his Fork.


Title: Re: *I Need More Explanation On This*
Post by: seoincorporation on September 19, 2022, 05:21:55 PM
1. Does miners get rewarded for their effort (computing power) that have been contributed during mining even if they never get to mine a block?
As pooya87 mention, there are 2 ways of mining:

1.- Solo mining. Is where you are running your mining farm and each block you fin it's yours.
2.- Pool mining. If your mining power is low then you can join to a pool where the mining reward gets shared between all the pool participants

If you are using any of those 2 methods and you or your pool doesn't find a block, then you don't get reward.


2. If the owner of the 51% of the total computational power decides to cheat, can he/she change the value of the bitcoin reward (say from 12.5 to 1000 bitcoins) and add them under his account?

There is an attack known as the 51% attack, but it doesn't consist in changing the mining reward, it's about change the blocks mined, that way you can make an attack that would looks like a time traveling where the attacker modify the old blocks with a malicious intention.