I still don't understand how mining works

[Xiaoxiao]

1) How does your computer solve complex math problems?

2) What gives a miner precedence over another miner in terms of how many coins he/she gets?

3) And how does transaction fees / broadcasting work?  How does the network decide to allow your transaction to go more swift than another transaction (both initiated at the same time). 

[jonnybravo0311]

1) How does your computer solve complex math problems?

2) What gives a miner precedence over another miner in terms of how many coins he/she gets?

3) And how does transaction fees / broadcasting work?  How does the network decide to allow your transaction to go more swift than another transaction (both initiated at the same time). 

1) brute force attempts.  Your miner attempts many solutions in the hopes of finding one that works
2) the more attempts you make the more likely you are to find a valid solution
3) whichever solution propagates throughout the network first is the accepted one.

Sorry about the short answers but typing a reply on my phone is unpleasant

[vervolioman]

3) And how does transaction fees / broadcasting work?  How does the network decide to allow your transaction to go more swift than another transaction (both initiated at the same time). 

The miner decides what transactions to add to the blockchain. Like how many transactions (priority gets transactions with higher fees) and if some of the transactions will be free transactions (with no fee)

[Xiaoxiao]

3) And how does transaction fees / broadcasting work?  How does the network decide to allow your transaction to go more swift than another transaction (both initiated at the same time). 

The miner decides what transactions to add to the blockchain. Like how many transactions (priority gets transactions with higher fees) and if some of the transactions will be free transactions (with no fee)

Does the miner have to be present to decide which transactions get higher priority and such... or can he just preset it?

[jonnybravo0311]

3) And how does transaction fees / broadcasting work?  How does the network decide to allow your transaction to go more swift than another transaction (both initiated at the same time). 

The miner decides what transactions to add to the blockchain. Like how many transactions (priority gets transactions with higher fees) and if some of the transactions will be free transactions (with no fee)

Does the miner have to be present to decide which transactions get higher priority and such... or can he just preset it?

No, the miner does not have to be present to determine which transactions to process.  Can you imagine having to sit in front of your computer constantly checking some decision manager to determine whether or not to process a transaction?  Thanks, but no thanks.  You set the parameters in your bitcoin.conf file.  For example, you can set min and max block size, min transaction fee, etc.  I highly suggest you take a look at the Bitcoin wiki here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Running_Bitcoin#Command-line_arguments and also here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

[Ayers]

with bruteforce, usually the one who come near the hash to solve(not the one who solve it) win the block, in pool is different

[TimeWatch]

Until you are a developer it's not of any concern how that thing works.I just know mining makes the money and hardware does the mining.And I am not planning on going deeper onto this mining thing

[Wusolini]

1) How does your computer solve complex math problems?

2) What gives a miner precedence over another miner in terms of how many coins he/she gets?

3) And how does transaction fees / broadcasting work?  How does the network decide to allow your transaction to go more swift than another transaction (both initiated at the same time). 

1) computing?

2) compare to real mining (horse power is like hash power)
by using plastic shovel you won't mine as much coal as using regular pickaxe or excavator ... and Schaufelradbagger 288 ( but powerful tool = lot of energy )

3) higher fee = faster confirmation ... sort of bribe for miners (bitcoin bankers)
it's connected to size (complexity) of transaction. Complex transaction takes more effort (time and power) to process and miners simply want to profit, thus will simply choose the best ratio size/fee.

[airpline1]

Miner goes boom boom, find rock, gets bitcoin, simple.
(Sarcasm, don't take it seriously)

[ksridharprasad]

Hi Friend,

Do not worry I too does not know how to mining works done, I am next to you. I too wish how to be done Bit coin mining.

[Billbags]

@ OP, you may be looking for these answers:

Layman's terms once explained to me:

We are 'mining' the reward for 'solving' a block by signing it with our signature and the time we did. Our miners receive packets of info at a certain difficulity level then quickly computing and sending back before its stale. The only encription is concerning the keys. We are not bruteforcing any encryptions while solving blocks. The more ghs we have to solve shares the more payout we get for our part of solving the block. We have went from cpu - gpu - fpga - asics while switching from original network - getwork network - stratum proxy to achieve the best ghs at the lowest bandwith.

Consider every transaction as the text "I from my wallet with address XXXX am sending to person with wallet YYYY the amount of ZZZZ BTC, which I am signing with my electronic signature for that wallet"

Now we all put a list of such transactions in a list and each one of us is signing that list with his own electronic signature by adding a transaction that states: "I confirm that I have checked all the transactions listed at date DDDD and there are no double spends - for which I will be rewarded 25 BTC" ... the one who is lucky that by applying his signature produces a result that starts with more zeroes than required from the network difficulty is the winner to 'solve' the block and is rewarded for that work.

Network difficulty is explained in the "self-evident" link posted below in amazing detail.

Most pools use stratum servers with VarDiff(variable difficulity) built in. They are very efficient and will never cheat a miner out of any work that he did during the window between the time the pool server decides on a new difficulty and the time the miner has had a chance to propagate that new difficulty to all its mining hardware.

You can also set the difficulty on your miner but if you authorize a worker on your connection with a difficulty set higher than what it was already running at, it will immediately increase your difficulty to the new minimum (since stratum difficulty is per-connection).  It will never drop below that setting for the remainder of the session even if vardiff would normally decrease it.


More technical but still understandable:

https://self-evident.org/?p=971

https://bitcoin.org/en/how-it-works

WATCH THIS VIDEO:

http://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance/money-and-banking/bitcoin/v/bitcoin-overview

[Xiaoxiao]

well looks like ill never understand how mining works.

[jonnybravo0311]

well looks like ill never understand how mining works.

Are you looking for the technical details of how mining works, or do you just want the high-level explanation of it?  A lot of good information has already been provided in this thread, so help us to help you.  What don't you understand?

[cloverme]

Check out video 10.... it pretty much covers all your questions.

http://bitcoin.cbtnuggets.com/

[homm88]

Yeah I had a peek at your changes, I adore your last block and current round info which you added. I wouldn't mind trying your stuff prefer a beta tester.This is an excellent way to create a sound income for sure.

[jonnybravo0311]

Yeah I had a peek at your changes, I adore your last block and current round info which you added. I wouldn't mind trying your stuff prefer a beta tester.This is an excellent way to create a sound income for sure.

You sure you replied to the right thread?  Your reply has nothing to do with the thread at all.

[BTCbuisinessman]

How is mining profitable if the miners cost so much money , the electricity costs , computer usage and then is it hit or miss after spending all this money to buy the equipment to maybe hit a blockchain and make some BTC? i know it use to be real easy to mine with ajust a regular laptop untill there was alot more BTC in circulation and the algorythms got harder to solve?

[majeis]

Yeah I had a peek at your changes, I adore your last block and current round info which you added. I wouldn't mind trying your stuff prefer a beta tester.This is an excellent way to create a sound income for sure.

You sure you replied to the right thread?  Your reply has nothing to do with the thread at all.

I still think that the most interesting thing about this thread is that it was started by a 2011 account.

[jonnybravo0311]

How is mining profitable if the miners cost so much money , the electricity costs , computer usage and then is it hit or miss after spending all this money to buy the equipment to maybe hit a blockchain and make some BTC? i know it use to be real easy to mine with ajust a regular laptop untill there was alot more BTC in circulation and the algorythms got harder to solve?

You have the audacity to make your user name BTCBusinessman (which, you misspelled by the way, and I find that very telling), yet you have no idea how BTC works?  Ahh... the beauty of irony.

Potential profitability and return on investment discussions belong in the Mining Speculation forum - and there are a multitude of threads there already discussing it.  You don't "hit a blockchain" and the "algorythms" didn't get harder to solve.  Try actually reading this thread, and the myriad others that explain how mining works.

Yeah I had a peek at your changes, I adore your last block and current round info which you added. I wouldn't mind trying your stuff prefer a beta tester.This is an excellent way to create a sound income for sure.

You sure you replied to the right thread?  Your reply has nothing to do with the thread at all.

I still think that the most interesting thing about this thread is that it was started by a 2011 account.

While I find it unlikely, I suppose it is possible that someone has been involved in crypto-currencies for 3 years and might not truly understand how mining really works.  Or, the more likely scenario: the account was bought.

[Vslacha]

Now mining is almost dead. Specially BTC mining. So no need to understand who mining works.