BITCOIN MINING

Bitcoin mining is the process by which transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, known as the block chain, and also the means through which new bitcoin are released. Anyone with access to the internet and suitable hardware can participate in mining. The mining process involves compiling recent transactions into blocks and trying to solve a computationally difficult puzzle. The participant who first solves the puzzle gets to place the next block on the block chain and claim the rewards. The rewards, which incentivize mining, are both the transaction fees associated with the transactions compiled in the block as well as newly released bitcoin.
Bitcoin mining is intentionally designed to be resource-intensive and difficult so that the number of blocks found each day by miners remains steady. Individual blocks must contain a proof of work to be considered valid. This proof of work is verified by other Bitcoin nodes each time they receive a block. Bitcoin uses the hashcash proof-of-work function.
The primary purpose of mining is to allow Bitcoin nodes to reach a secure, tamper-resistant consensus. Mining is also the mechanism used to introduce Bitcoins into the system: Miners are paid any transaction fees as well as a "subsidy" of newly created coins.
This both serves the purpose of disseminating new coins in a decentralized manner as well as motivating people to provide security for the system.
Bitcoin mining is so called because it resembles the mining of other commodities: it requires exertion and it slowly makes new currency available at a rate that resembles the rate at which commodities like gold are mined from the ground.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT BITCOINS AND WHERE THEY COME FROM
Before starting your mining operation, you might want to learn a little bit about where bitcoins come from. The full answer to this question is a little abstract, so let’s break it down. Every time a transaction is made between two bitcoin addresses, it is broadcast throughout the network. Bitcoin mining computers running specialized software see these transactions and collectively add them to the current ‘block’ of transactions, while also collecting a miner’s fee contained in each transaction. This is the first incentive for bitcoin miners. The second incentive comes from mining the blocks. For every block of bitcoin transactions generated, miners compete to solve a very ‘difficult’ math problem. The winner of this competition is awarded some newly minted bitcoins. About every 4 years, the number of bitcoinsgenerated in this way is halved.As you can see in the chart below, the total number of bitcoins approaches about 21 million bitcoins and will never exceed that number.In addition, the difficulty of solving each block increases over time which place a significant constraint on the supply of bitcoin. In this design, inflation is kept at bay while miners continually are incentivized to run their machines on the network. And with all that said, we can safely move on the details of how to mine your own bitcoins.

A FEW CONCERNS FOR BITCOIN MINERS

The main concerns for bitcoin miners are energy consumption and hash rate, where both play a crucial role in the profitability of bitcoin mining. If you are able to balance the two such that your ramping energy costs don’t overtake the bitcoins you earn through mining then your operation will be successful.

The hardware that miners use has evolved over the years from using small form factor PCs with certain model graphics cards, to specially engineered bitcoin mining rigs touted for their hash rates and energy efficiency. The later are optimally configured and easy to setup for bitcoin mining. However, for the novice bitcoin miner, it was profitable for many years to simply run one or a small cluster of bitcoin mining machines out of your home but those days have come to end for the most part. As the difficulty of computing the hashes for mining has increased and the rewards for mining have diminished, it has become much less profitable and in most cases unprofitable to run mining hardware from your home. Energy costs cripple novice miners, while those in countries with heavily subsidized electricity can enjoy sustained profits and successfully run large scale bitcoin mining operations. Be sure to take these costs into account when deciding if you want to start mining bitcoins.

To be continued..........