Cryptocurrencies have become a matter of interest, not only of an economic nature, but also of a social nature. Everyone wants to know more about these values, which, born in 2008 in the form of Bitcoin, are attracting the attention of any lover of technology. But cryptocurrencies operate through a cryptographic system called mining, and for which thousands of computers around the world are responsible. The mining activity is not centralized, and any user can dedicate themselves to mining cryptocurrencies for financial gain. This mining activity has two problems, the first of which is the power that is needed, we cannot mine with just any computer. Second, it consumes a lot of energy, so, in some cases, it may not be a profitable activity.
What is cryptocurrency mining?
This activity is the process by which miners use power in the form of a hash to formalize and give value to a transaction. A hash is a cryptographic function that encodes the data of a chain. This leads us to think about blockchain technology. Do you know what it consists of? We are going to use a simple example so that you understand it. The blockchain is nothing more than a gigantic database made up of a multitude of elements. When a file, can already be a cryptocurrency or a photograph, uses blockchain technology, it is fragmented into a multitude of different pieces on different computers. For this file or value to be accessible, all members that have fragments of it must validate the operation , otherwise it will have no effect.
Cryptocurrencies use the blockchain to formalize and complete a transaction. If you want to send a quantity of cryptocurrencies to someone, all the records in that database have to match and be validated at the same time. These mathematical operations have to be verified by means of mathematical puzzles. When they are resolved, the operation is approved and the miner receives a reward in the form of virtual currency . For example, if this operation has taken place with Bitcoin, you will receive an amount of it.
As we have already mentioned, mining cryptocurrencies requires both specific software and hardware and, probably, with the computer you have at home you cannot do it. For example, CPUs and graphics cards are high-performance. On the other hand, we must guarantee ourselves a fairly stable power supply. In addition, mining has a high economic cost, so it generally does not compensate if we are going to centralize efforts in a single team. Establishing a mining network can be interesting in places where electricity does not have a high price.
The price of the electricity bill would make it practically unfeasible for a person in Spain to have good economic returns through mining. The best countries in which to carry out this activity are those in which the electricity bill has a fairly cheap cost. This is the case of Iceland, Kuwait or Venezuela.
The case of Iceland is very particular. Electric energy is very cheap, since it is obtained through geothermal energy, as it is a highly active volcanic island. Interestingly, mining generates a large amount of heat in computer equipment, so there are very clever miners who take advantage of this surplus to heat some rooms in their mining site.
Being in possession of fast hardware is what helps the miner to earn more and more cryptocurrencies, since as soon as the mathematical puzzle is solved, it is considered validated and receives its reward. If your team is powerful, it will do it faster than the others. This reward is received when a new block is added to the chain, blockchain is a chain of blocks. But to get good profits mining cryptocurrencies, you have to make a very high investment and not do it precisely from Spain.
But this was not always the case, at the beginning of the mining processes, it could be done with very basic equipment . But, currently, there are many users mining and the requirements have increased remarkably. In any case, nothing prevents you from trying so that you know how the process works, your computer can be useful, even if you do not obtain any type of economic return.
As you can see, cryptocurrencies are much more than a type of currency that already works to make and receive payments. Fully decentralized and without the authority of a single international monetary entity, they need the support of an extensive network in order to function. In our country it is already possible to send payments in cryptocurrencies, as well as to pay in some shops with them. Remember that these assets do not have a physical format, cryptocurrencies are mathematical algorithms, but their interest has not stopped growing exponentially.
