Cryptocurrency Mining Principles Flashcards
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Read the first 7 Cryptocurrency Mining Principles flashcards as text
What is the primary purpose of the 'nonce' field in a Bitcoin block header during mining?
Answer: To iterate through values until a valid hash is found
Miners repeatedly increment the nonce to produce different hash outputs until one meets the target difficulty.
Which consensus mechanism does Ethereum use after 'The Merge' in September 2022?
Answer: Proof of Stake
Ethereum transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake via 'The Merge,' eliminating GPU mining.
In Bitcoin mining, what happens to the block reward approximately every 210,000 blocks?
Answer: It halves
The Bitcoin halving event reduces the block subsidy by 50% roughly every four years.
What does 'orphan block' (stale block) refer to in cryptocurrency mining?
Answer: A valid block that is not included in the longest chain
Orphan blocks are valid blocks discarded when another chain branch becomes the longest accepted chain.
What is 'selfish mining' in the context of cryptocurrency networks?
Answer: Withholding discovered blocks to gain competitive advantage
Selfish mining is a strategy where miners hide newly found blocks to waste competing miners' resources.
Which algorithm does Litecoin use for its Proof of Work mining?
Answer: Scrypt
Litecoin uses Scrypt, which was chosen to be memory-hard and initially ASIC-resistant.
What is the 'extranonce' used for in Bitcoin mining pools?
Answer: Additional nonce space to expand the search range for pool workers
The extranonce extends the nonce search space, allowing multiple pool workers to search different ranges simultaneously.