Bitcoin mining is a process of verifying and adding transaction records to the public ledger called the blockchain. Bitcoin miners are rewarded with bitcoins for their work.
The main purpose of mining is to allow Bitcoin nodes to reach a secure, tamper-resistant consensus. Bitcoin miners help keep the network secure by approving transactions.
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.
The first miner to solve a block is rewarded with 12.5 BTC and the associated transaction fees.
The current block reward is 12.5 BTC and will halve every 210,000 blocks or approximately every 4 years.
Mining pools are groUPS of cooperating miners who agree to share block rewards in proportion to their contributed mining power.
There are many different types of bitcoin miners on the market today. ASIC miners are purpose-built devices that perform bitcoin mining calculations at extremely high speeds.
FPGA miners are similar to ASICs, but they are more versatile because they can be repurposed for other applications after they have served their purpose in mining. GPU miners use GPUs for mining, which are typically used for gaming or other graphics-intensive applications.
ASICs are currently the most popular type of bitcoin miner due to their high hash rates and low power consumption. FPGAs and GPUs are also popular choices for bitcoin mining due to their flexibility and high hash rates.
The best bitcoin miner is the one that provides the most hashing power for the least amount of electricity. The most efficient bitcoin miners on the market today are:
1. Bitmain Antminer S9i (13 TH/s) – 94% efficiency – 845 watts
2. Bitmain Antminer S9j (14 TH/s) – 93% efficiency – 845 watts
3. Canaan AvalonMiner 821 (11 TH/s) – 82% efficiency – 1150 watts
4. Halong Mining DragonMint T1 (16 TH/s) – 80% efficiency – 1350 watts.