The article states...
I perform the first round of hashing to mine a block. Completing this round took me 16 minutes, 45 seconds.
^^^This is wrong. Author
did not mine a block in 16 minutes, 45 seconds. He just calculated a Hash.
Isn't mining a block calculating a hash?
How many hashes are needed to mine a block? (I'm not talking about difficulty, but about how many hashes does the algorithm actually need).
No one knows. Algorithm does not specify this. Its pure luck... or scientifically u can say entropy. Your first hash may meet the criteria as well as the n
th hash.
That is NOT my question.
My question is: How many hashes you need in the algorithm? Given the correct nonce and transactions, how many hashes are used in the algorithm to get to the value that will be compared against the current difficulty?
I'm not talking about entropy and such, but about the actual algorithm.
You only need one. But it needs to be the right one. A hash is essentially a guess to the solution to an equation, miners will continue to make these "guesses" until it finds the right one
