Questions tagged [hashpower]

The hash rate is the measuring unit of the processing power used to secure the Bitcoin network.

The hash rate is the measuring unit of the processing power of the Bitcoin network. The Bitcoin network must make intensive mathematical operations for security purposes. When the network reached a hash rate of 10 Th/s, it meant it could make 10 trillion hashes per second.

Source: https://bitcoin.org/en/vocabulary

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How does merged mining work?

How does the implementation of merged mining affect the global hash rate of alt chains? Does one solution fit all? Does one solution fit some? Does the rate of "solutions that will fit" decrease the more forks that it is tested against? An…
MaxSan
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What is the difference between kH/s, MH/s, and GH/s?

I started mining on a friend's computer and it shows 300 kH/s. But when I research other peoples' hash rates I usually see MH/s. Are these speeds the same as kilobytes and megabytes? Also, when I say 300 kH/s does that mean 300,000 Hashes generated…
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Solo mining just for luck, realistic?

Just turned my attention to mining and the concepts are quite new to me. First of let me be clear: I realize that my hardware setup is far from ideal for mining. This is also the reason why I do not want to pool, I would simply provide a too small a…
Isac
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What does the mining difficulty number really mean?

I'm new to bitcoin; please bear with me. I'm looking into mining, how it works, and how to get started. I see a "mining difficulty" from many sources and list a 3 billion something number without units. What exactly does this number mean and how…
frеdsbend
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Why can't they use super computers to mine all the bitcoins?

I have very limited knowledge of bitcoin, but, I hope you don't mind my asking this question: As I understand it, "mining bitcoin" requires "significant" computational prowess. A lot of dedicated mining rigs have been built out of FPGAs, ASICs and…
thatmaheshrs
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What can be done about the no-transaction block relayer (currently 71.123.170.150)?

An unknown major solo miner (currently IP 71.123.170.150), most likely a botnet, is relaying blocks with zero transactions. Two weeks ago this miner constituted ~15% of the network, now it constitutes ~30%. If the growth rate continues, in about two…
BinaryMage
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What happens if hash rate decreases rapidly?

Since difficulty is only adjusted every 2016 blocks, what would happen if hash rate was to decrease rapidly? Wouldn't this cause blocks to be created less frequently and also making the time until difficulty is adjusted even longer? Here's a…
D.H.
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How will bitcoin stay decentralized when mining becomes extremely expensive?

My understanding of bitcoin is that the miners are the ones keeping bitcoin decentralized. What happens when only the richest of people can afford mining?
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Mining pool hashrate effect on a miner's income

Newbie miners have many misconceptions about how the hashrate of the pool they mine in will affect their mining income. If a big miner joins the pool there are some unhappy miners who think that now they will get paid less because big miners take a…
Dr.Haribo
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What happens once the mining reward gets cut in half?

Sometime around the end of 2012 the mining reward is expected to be cut in half from 50BTC/block to 25BTC/block. What effect will this have? Doesn't this mean that it will be less economic to run a Bitcoin miner? Will the hashing power be severely…
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What is the approximate hashrate of a human?

Which and how much mathematical operations are required for the blockheader-to-blockhash operation and how fast would a human be able to calculate a single hash? EDIT: For simplicity, I think it's a good idea to use the world record for mathematical…
Steven Roose
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What are the odds of discovering a block as a solo miner?

I understand that during mining, one does not discover individual coins, but rather blocks of coins, and I heard that one block equals many coins (but how many?). I am wondering though, as a solo miner, what are the odds of discovering a new block?…
Friendly
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Why doesn't the same miner always win?

If the miner with the strongest ability to solve the block wins, why doesn't the same miner win every time? Wouldn't that miner still have the strongest ability to perform the proof of work on the next block and thus win every block?
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What mining performance can we roughly expect from the Intel SHA extensions of the upcoming Skylake processor architecture?

Intel is scheduled to release their new x86 SkyLake microarchitecture in Q3 2015. Among other interesting features, it will introduce SHA extensions that will allow hardware acceleration of the Secure Hash Algorithm family, including SHA256 as used…
Will
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Why does merely having Windows Media Player open double my GPU hashrate?

I'm using poclbm to mine under Windows... processor is an AMD A6-3400M with integrated Radeon HD 6250G GPU. When Windows Media Player is closed, I get a rate of 16 megahashes/second, but when it is open (even if stopped or paused) poclbm reports a…
okw
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