The Ethereum network is based on the principle of public-private key cryptography. That is, there is a public key that anyone can use to encrypt a message, and there is a corresponding private key that only the intended recipient can use to decrypt it.
In order to send a transaction on the Ethereum network, you need to know the private key associated with the address you’re sending it to.
The process of mining creates new blocks on the blockchain, which contains all the information about all the transactions that have taken place on the network since the last block was mined. In order to mine a block, miners need to solve a complex mathematical problem.
The first miner to solve the problem gets to add the new block to the blockchain and receives a reward in ETH for their trouble.
The process of mining requires a lot of computational power. In order to make money mining ETH, you need to have a machine with a lot of processing power.
This is why people often refer to ETH mining as “CPU mining.”.
Can you CPU mine Ethereum? Yes, but it’s not going to be profitable. The amount of computational power required to mine ETH effectively makes it unprofitable for most people.
If you’re interested in mining ETH, you’re better off joining a mining pool or purchasing cloud mining contracts.