Indepth (more) information about mining ?
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Hello fellow miners,
Maybe i didnt look in the right places upto this point but i’m looking for some more information about mining (feathercoins).
I’ve been mining since last week and having fun in setting up the rigs and such but i really like to know whats going on in there.
Questions i have sofar are:
- how does the mining actually work, what about the shares, getwork, rejected, discarded and so on and on.
- how does this block chain work, where does it ‘live’ and how
- how do pools work, how to setup one (of one would), register, can anyone do it etc etc
- how does the wallet work, backup, depositing and withdrawing
- what is a feathercoin really, okay a piece of code but, but is it a 256bit number, a matching strong encryption key set and if so how does it work.
I get these questions more often when telling friends and family about the rigs a have ‘blowing’ in my workshop and like to give some more indepth answers then the Beavis and Butthead grin saying 'uh uh dunno, it makes money… ’
Maybe some of these questions are pretty dumb but id like to learn and read some good primers if they do exist…
Thanks,
Paul
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[quote name=“prensel” post=“42888” timestamp=“1386746444”]
Questions i have sofar are:- how does the mining actually work, what about the shares, getwork, rejected, discarded and so on and on.
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It works by extending the blockchain, adding new transactions to it. It does this by finding the solution to a problem of varying difficulty which is difficult to produce, but trivial to verify.
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- how does this block chain work, where does it ‘live’ and how
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It’s a public ledger of all the transactions to date. It lives on every node connected to the network and is shared around via a p2p network. Whenever a miner finds a new block, it broadcasts this block to the network, and everyone broadcasts it to everyone they’re connected to. The nodes on the network verify the work the miner did (remember, it’s hard to do, but easy to verify), it’s added to the end of the blockchain.
[quote]
- how do pools work, how to setup one (of one would), register, can anyone do it etc etc
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Pools work by having users try and mine, and paying them for a portion of the work. In reality only one pool member will actually find a block, but everyone who’s participating will get a share of it. This reduces variance: You could mine solo, and get the entire reward, but the time it takes to find a share might be a REALLY long time. By mining with a pool, you get the rewards broken up over time, even if you never actually end up finding a block. You also get only your share of the work, even if it’s you who finds the block. Pools enforce this fair-share payment system.
Yes, anyone can set one up, and generally speaking anyone can register. There’s lots of guides you can google for specifics.
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- how does the wallet work, backup, depositing and withdrawing
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The wallet works by downloading the blockchain and reading it. It sees what keys you own, and tallys up your balance from the public ledger. It knows when it sees a new block if you own the key to the address, it will add that amount to your balance. It knows how to create a transaction spending the coins you own, and publish it on the network for inclusion in the blockchain by miners.
The coins themselves don’t exist. They’re just entries in the blockchain, and you can’t generate a valid transaction spending them unless you own the private key. So anyone can send to your public key, even if your wallet isn’t connected, because when it does connect, it’ll see the updates to the blockchain and reflect your new balance accordingly. When you back up your wallet, you’re really just backing up your private keys.
[quote]
- what is a feathercoin really, okay a piece of code but, but is it a 256bit number, a matching strong encryption key set and if so how does it work.
[/quote]
Feathercoin is a technology (the blockchain), an implementation of that technology (the wallet), a currency (the entries in the blockchain), a payment system (people spend coins, miners add those spends to the blockchain), a store of value (only you can spend the coins you own), a community (welcome!) and a revolution in currency. The blockchain is a technology which allows us to ensure that the ledger remains consistent though the use of cryptographic primitives which allow us to assert it’s validity, and arrive at a distributed consensus about it’s final form in a trustless environment. It uses public key encryption to accomplish this.
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I get these questions more often when telling friends and family about the rigs a have ‘blowing’ in my workshop and like to give some more indepth answers then the Beavis and Butthead grin saying 'uh uh dunno, it makes money… ’
[/quote]The public ledger is the key here. It’s like your bank account ledger, except instead of being stored at a bank, it’s stored with everyone who runs the client, and instead of trusting your bank to keep it accurate, it’s accuracy is ensured by the laws of mathematics (hard to do, easy to verify) and everyone agreeing to follow the protocol. This works because anyone who deviates from the protocol would be detected during verification, and rejected. In order to make a change to the protocol, more than 50% of the network has to agree to the change. This is literally anarchy: Self-governing without oversight.
Hopefully this helps, and I’ve given you enough keywords to go and google on your own from here if you want more specific details. :)
- how does the mining actually work, what about the shares, getwork, rejected, discarded and so on and on.
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Thanks for your reply !
It’s hard to explain to noobs (like me) what and how cryptocurrency works. Its a bit like the ‘old’ days in early/mid 90’s when i offered Internet access through 14k4 modems and kept telling people the Internet would be the future. I can still hear them laughing…
I will continue my quest for knowledge and see where/how i can support Feathercoin besides mining. Setting up a p2pool would help i’ve read but havent figured out yet why and when it would help the network.
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I found this thread to be really useful and informative, +rep for both :).