Mining

Mining is the process of adding new blocks of transactions to a proof-of-work blockchain and earning newly created coins for doing it. Miners run specialised hardware that repeatedly hashes candidate blocks until one meets the network's difficulty target; the first to succeed broadcasts the block and collects the block reward plus transaction fees. Difficulty adjusts automatically, so blocks keep arriving at roughly the intended pace no matter how much hardware joins or leaves. Mining is also how most proof-of-work coins are issued into circulation in the first place. Costs are dominated by electricity and equipment, and because block rewards shrink on fixed schedules such as Bitcoin's halving, the economics shift over time with prices, fees and energy costs.