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If you are mining Bitcoin, you do not need to figure the total value of the 64-digit number (the hash). I repeat: You do not need to figure the total value of a hash.

Bear in Mind that ELI5 analogy, in which I composed the number 19 on a piece of newspaper and put it in a sealed envelope

In Bitcoin mining terms, that metaphorical undisclosed number in the envelope is called the objective hash.

What miners are doing with those tremendous computers and dozens of cooling fans is guessing at the hash. Miners create these guesses by randomly generating as many"nonces" as possible, as fast as possible. A nonce is short for"number only used once," and the nonce is the key to generating these 64-bit hexadecimal numbers I keep talking about.

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The primary miner whose nonce generates a hash that is less than or equivalent to the target hash is given credit for completing that obstruct, and is given the spoils of 12.5 BTC. .

In theory you could Attain the same aim by rolling a 16-sided die 64 times to arrive at random numbers, but why on earth would you want to do this

The screenshot below, taken by the site Blockchain.info, might help you put all of this information together at a glance. You're looking at a summary of everything that happened when block #490163 was mined. The nonce that generated the "winning" hash was 731511405. The goal hash is shown on the top.

As you see here, their contribution to the Bitcoin community is they confirmed 1768 transactions for this block. If you truly want to find all 1768 of these transactions for this block, go to this page and scroll down to the heading"Transactions." .

There is no minimum goal, but there is a maximum target determined by the Bitcoin Protocol. No target can be greater than this number:

Here are some examples of randomized hashes and also the criteria for whether they will lead to achievement for your miner:

You would have to get a fast mining rig or, more realistically, join a mining pool--a bunch of miners that combine their computing power and split the mined bitcoin. Mining pools are comparable to people Powerball clubs whose members purchase lottery tickets en masse and consent to discuss any winnings. A disproportionately high number of blocks are mined by pools rather than by individual miners. .

In other words, it is literally just a numbers game.  You cannot guess the pattern or make a prediction based on preceding goal hashes. The difficulty level of the most recent block at the time of writing is 2,874,674,234,416, i.e. the chance of any given nonce producing a hash below the goal is just 1 in 2,874,674,234,416--less than 1 in 2 trillion. .

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The aforementioned website Cryptocompare offers a very helpful calculator which permits you to plug in numbers such as your hash rate, power prices etc., to gauge the costs and benefits.

Mining rewards are paid into the miner who check it out finds a solution to the puzzle , and the probability that a participant will be the one to find the solution is equal to the portion of the total mining power on the network.  Participants which have a small percentage of their mining capability stand a tiny chance of discovering the next block on their own.  For instance, a mining card that one could buy to get a couple thousand bucks would represent less than 0.001% of the network's mining energy.  With such a small chance at finding the next block, it could be a long time before that miner finds out a block, and also the problem going up makes things even worse.  The miner may never recoup their investment.  The answer to this predicament is mining pools.  Mining pools are run by third parties and coordinate groups of miners.  By working together in a pool and sharing the payouts amongst participants, miners can get a steady stream of bitcoin starting the day that they trigger their miner.  Statistics on some of the mining pools can be seen on Blockchain.info. .

Sure. As mentioned, the easiest way to get Bitcoin is to buy it on an exchange such as Coinbase.com. Alternately, you can always leverage the"pickaxe plan". This is based on the old saw that during the 1848 California gold rush, the smart investment was not to pan for gold, but instead to make the pickaxes taken for mining.

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In a crypto context, the pickaxe equivalent would be a company that manufactures equpiment utilized for Bitcoin mining. You can look into companies that make ASICs miners or GPU miners. .