Homework on Mining and Proof of Work - Questions

Blockchain and Bitcoin 101
#4259
  1. Because they must be incentivize not to cheet.
    2.Because all the others blocks must be remined.
  2. The difficulty is grater when there are a lot of miners involve in mining.
1 Like
#4260

While anyone can participate in mining, the cost to participate makes it competitive while incentivizing participants to be truthful and mine blocks efficiently to be profitable.

Changing a previous block would require would make each consecutive block in the chain invalid and need to also be re hashed, and in the time it would take to accomplish this, more and more new blocks would be mined to the chain making it impossible to catch up.

The network increases difficulty when more miners are participating in the network, which is judged by the hash rate. The higher the has rate the lower the target number their hash must achieve.

1 Like
#4261
  1. Miners will have incentive to mine if they have to invest into electricity to make money.
  2. If there were to be a change to a previous block you will have to change all the blocks that comes after that one.
  3. The nonce changes the difficulty of the hashing to regulate the amount of time and electricity it takes to mine a bitcoin. Like this, when there are more miners, the difficulty goes up as well.
1 Like
#4262

Homework on Mining and Proof of Work - Questions

  1. Why is it important to make sure that miners spend money (on electricity) while mining?
    *If they lose money they will play by the rules to earn the money back spent on electricity with added interest. And if they misbehave they will just lose the money and its pointless doing so.

  2. Why would it be very difficult for someone to go back change a previously added block?
    *Because more blocks are being created faster than you rewrites the previous block and it is very expensive.

  3. How does the network regulate mining difficulty?
    *It depends on the number of miners. The higher the number of miners are the more difficult for them to solve the puzzle.

1 Like
#4263
  1. Why is it important to make sure that miners spend money (on electricity) while mining?
    • Create incentive to win the latest block and earn profit on money spent (electricity)
    • It’s would be extremely costly for a miner to be dishonest
      • 51% (or greater) of the of the entire networks hash rate would be required
      • Better off utilising the excessive hash rate to earn honest rewards
  2. Why would it be very difficult for someone to go back change a previously added block?
    • All following blocks from the back change would have to be remined, as well as the latest block won and accepted, before a honest miner mines just 1 block
      • This is extremely difficult (practically impossible)
      • Also extremely costly, therefore there is a reduced incentive to be dishonest
  3. How does the network regulate mining difficulty?
    • The target is adjusted relative to the hash power of the entire network
      • Greater Hash power - lower target - lower probability of guessing nonce within target range - greater difficulty in being first to guess correctly
2 Likes
#4264

  1. You need to spend money (in the form of your electricity bill) to make money (in the form of Bitcoin). If you do not spend the money beforehand, there will be no need to stick to the rules. You could stick to the rules or try to cheat because you have nothing to lose.

  2. All blocks are in part based on the outcome of the previous block. If you change the previous block, the outcome of that block will be different and the link is broken. The outcome of the current block is no longer correct. You will need to change the previous block, the current block and future blocks and be the fastest to do so. Because only the longest chain of blocks is valid.

  3. The network sets a random number as the target. The more miners there are, the lower that target is set. And because your outcome must be lower than the target for your block to be submitted, the lower the target, the more difficult is it to find it.

2 Likes
#4265
  1. Incentive to stay honest, money would be lost if someone trys to cheat the system
  2. It would disrupt the chain, all subsequent block would need to be remined, at a high cost and quicker than other miners which is near impossible. Cost would outweigh the benefit.
  3. The more competition for mining a new block, the lower the target hash. Meaning its harder to guess the correct Nonce number. Meaning its everyone has a even chance.
1 Like
#4266
  1. Why is it important to make sure that miners spend money (on electricity) while mining?
    To incentivize them to play by the rules
  2. Why would it be very difficult for someone to go back change a previously added block?
    Because they would have to re-mine not only that block, but every block after that, and they would never catch back up again
  3. How does the network regulate mining difficulty?
    The more miners on the network, the lower the target and the higher the difficulty.
1 Like
#4267

  1. Why is it important to make sure that miners spend money (on electricity) while mining?
    Spending money on electricity is the additional incentivization on their part to continue to mine for the goal of obtaining their rewards.

  2. Why would it be very difficult for someone to go back change a previously added block?
    To go back a previously added block would consist of a chain of changes from the hash output of that block and every block before it. As most miners are incentivized to work on longer chains, that would consider of an extraneous amount of effort while being able to keep up with mining competitors.

  3. How does the network regulate mining difficulty?
    The network regulates mining difficulty by lowering and raising the protocol according to the amount of miners in the network, making mining extremely difficult with high competition.

1 Like
#4268

  1. Why is it important to make sure that miners spend money (on electricity) while mining?
    Ans : To solve the mathematical puzzle they need more computer power. For that they need more electricity.

  2. Why would it be very difficult for someone to go back change a previously added block?
    Ans : Coz all the blocks are connected their previous block and with nonce number. If any change happen in any of the block it affect the nonce , hash number. this affect all block connected with changed block of hash number. to change that it take so longer to solve again and reconnect to other blocks.

  3. How does the network regulate mining difficulty?
    Ans : As difficulty increases, the number of possible valid hashes decreases. With fewer possible valid hashes, it takes more processing power to find a valid hash.

1 Like
#4269

  1. It’s important to make sure that miners spend money while mining because the whole bitcoin network is a tradeoff you’re doing in order to mine crypto, this atmosphere allows for players to act in accordance to the rules rather than try to cheat the system.

  2. It would be very difficult for someone to go back and change a previously added block because to change the hash of a given block would mean that you’d have to be fast enough to change all the blocks in the network and the ones currently being added on by other miners – it would be not possible. To change the hash of one block is to change the hash of the other ones linked to it as well since this is a chain of blocks(data) blockchain.

  3. The network regulates mining difficulty by changing the target price whenever it has to, to keep the block time at 10 minutes.

1 Like
#4270
  1. Why is it important to make sure that miners spend money (on electricity) while mining?

It is important that miners spend money upfront on electricity so that they are financially incentavized to use correct information when creating blocks.

  1. Why would it be very difficult for someone to go back change a previously added block?

    It is practically impossible to go back and change a transaction inside the blockchain because each new block is based on the hash of the previous block as well as the transactions of the current block so messing with one block invalidates every block after said block.

  2. How does the network regulate mining difficulty?

    The network adjusts the target to either include more or less numbers depending on how many miners are currently on the network. The more miners present, the lower the target and the harder it is to guess a number lower than the target.

1 Like
#4271

1.) So it makes securing the network based on incentives. A bad actor will suffer economic losses due to electricity cost. He could maybe create gains at the same time by putting the same energy cost into constructively mining.
2.) Because changing a previous block changes its hash, which changes the hash of all consecutive blocks. That in turn means that new nonces of all adapted blocks must be mined, which takes so long for one actor, that by the time he would have recreated a false version of the blockchain, all the other miners will have added a ton of new blocks to the correct version of the blockchain, and the bad actor can never catch up.
3.) When hashing power goes up, mining difficulty goes up. In the blocks that means it will be more difficult to find a correct nonce for a hash, since the chances of a fit go down with higher difficulty.

1 Like
#4272

  1. Because if they don’t use money on electricity, they will not lose money if they dont play by the rules.

  2. If they change a previous block the chain will break. You have to change all the blocks otherwise the it will fail and not be rewarded.

  3. By having a high/low target.

1 Like
#4273

Because miners have to spend first by doing the job then get the reward, the miners are incentives to follow the system or they lose and not get rewarded. this is proof of work, proof you have worked before get the reward for the work!

Because when you change a block, you have to change every block after and so on, wish takes more time and energy then adding a new block, so its pointless.

After every 2016 blocks is mined it then adjust the mining difficulty, either making it more “difficult” wish means that it will cost more power to mine the same number of blocks. or the way around after the adjustment it can become easier wish means cost less power to mine same size.

1 Like
#4274
  1. This incentivizes the miners to follow the rules so that they can be rewarded with hash rewards and transaction fee’s to offset the cost of mining. They have skin in the game and need to mine properly in order to see a return on their investment.
  2. All the blocks are related to each other in how they are mined. If you change one block, it changes all of the blocks after it. This would create more work for the miner and there is no real reason to do it.
  3. The network regulates mining difficulty because the target changes with more miners on the network. The more miners of the network, the target becomes lower, which means it is harder to guess the nonce, because there are less options.
1 Like
#4275

1 So they will lose money if they are dishonest
2 They will have to mine 2 blocks faster than everyone else mines 1 which is basically impossible.
3 The protocol lowers and raises the difficulty to keep the blocks as close to 10 mins apart as possible.

1 Like
#4276

  1. By spending money they have to follow the rules otherwise they will loose money.

  2. If you change previous blocks you change every hash after that which corrupt the links.

  3. By a so called target changes so each block is approximately 10 minutes in between.

1 Like
#4277

  1. Because it is needed to incentivate them to get the Blockchain Reward and the fees of making a block and do not lose money.

  2. Because the change in a block will produce a change in every block generated after it.

  3. Making the hash puzzle more complex by lowering the target hash. Miners have to get a hash (previous hash + transactions + nonce, a random number) lower than the target.

1 Like
#4278

  1. Why is it important to make sure that miners spend money (on electricity) while mining?
    To incentivize them to reap the reward to pay back the costs on the electricity and make a profit from the block reward and transaction fees.

  2. Why would it be very difficult for someone to go back change a previously added block?
    Because the amount of energy needed to change that block, every block after, and catch up to the new blocks made is so expensive that there is no gain financially to do so. This happens because the slightest change creates a new hash for that block and every block thereafter.

  3. How does the network regulate mining difficulty?
    The more miners the lower the targeted hash becomes. The lower the target the more difficult it is to guess the hash the more difficult to guess the hash the more energy required which drives up cost. This works vice versa as well the less miners the higher the target hash becomes making it easier to guess the hash which would be more economical for miners.

1 Like