#poolmining

Definitions of key terms News about cryptocurrencies What's the mining? Is it still profitable from home ? What is a mining pool? How do you choose your mining pools ?

Definitions of key terms[1] :

Consensus : When a majority of participants of a network agree on the validity of transaction.

Hash function :  A function that maps data of an arbitrary size.

Merkle Tree : A tree in which every leaf node is labelled with the hash of a data block and every non-leaf node is labelled with the cryptographic hash of the labels of its child nodes.

Mining :  The act of validation Blockchain transactions. Requires computing power and electricity to solve “puzzlesé. Mining rewards coins based on your computing power.

Mining pool : A collection of miners who come together to share their processing power over a network and agree to split the rewards of a new block found within the pool.

[1] Glossary of Blockchains Terms, Blockchain Training Alliance

1 News about cryptocurrencies

 Bitcoin was invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto with the publication of an article entitled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". Bitcoin thus positions itself as a means of placing international finance on a more objective and incorruptible basis. Ten years later, it seems that a new economic storm is facing us. Indeed, the exogenous shock of the coronavirus that hit the world and forced populations into containment has once again raised the spectre of an economic crisis. A series of negative events followed, with negative bond yields, low interest rates and low bank values, as well as an oil shock. As I write this article, oil is trading at negative values, the WTI barrel price had fallen into negative territory on Monday as investors were forced to pay buyers to sell their crude at the risk of ending up with surplus barrels. In light of the new global crisis, the question arises, how will Bitcoin's crypto-currencies react and how will they be affected? The crypto industry was disappointed with the reaction of the crypto asset because on March 8, the market collapsed. Bitcoin lost 10% of its value in one day and the other major crypto currencies 16%. They did not act as a safe haven.

 However, the situation we are in is not a financial crisis, which would have allowed cryptocurrency or not to become a safe haven. The Covid-19 crisis is a sanitary crisis. As a result, investors sold all their assets, traditional or crypto assets, because they were in need of liquidity, which explains the correlation between crypto currencies and traditional values. A global fear spread across the markets without sparing any asset class. Yet this does not mean that crypto currencies are doing badly. They have suffered an economic shock combined with a widespread fear, but some funds and studies point out that the year 2020 is seeing more and more investments coming from institutional investors. The leading asset manager Grayscale Investments raised USD 503.7 million in 1Q20, twice the previous quarterly peak in 3Q19 (USD 254.8). The fund says a strong inflow of institutional money is coming into financial products related to crypto assets: $503.7 million which is 83% of the capital raised over the full year 2019. The crypto industry is expecting a next bull run that would potentially be boosted by institutional investors.

What's the mining? Is it still profitable from home?

 Let's start with a historical and technical reminder. The term mining appeared at the same time as the first blockchain, "the bitcoin blockchain". As Bitcoin is considered to be digital gold, mining refers to the gold miner of the time. Imitating his predecessor, the miner goes out to mine Bitcoin, without his pickaxe but with his computer to solve complex mathematical calculations. Thus, every miner who solves the mathematical calculation is rewarded with Bitcoins.

 The simplest definition of mining is as follows: Cryptocurrency mining is an operation which consists in validating a transaction on a blockchain network by means of a mathematical calculation. The blockchain consensus allows to highlight the governance rules and the mining to secure the blockchain. In the case of proof of work (PoW), the miner will try a multitude of possibilities until he finds the right result, so it is easy to understand why the more computing power the miner has, the more likely he is to find the right result before other miners, hence the interest of mining pools.

 What is a minor? A miner is a network node that collects transactions and combines them into blocks. For each transaction performed, miner nodes receive and verify the transactions, add them to the memory "pool" (in computing, a pool is a reusable set of data) and begin assembling them into a block of multiple transactions. At the beginning of the bitcoin blockchain, each user equipped with his computer (CPU or GPU) could mine and participate in the processes of securing the blockchain .It is still possible to do this at home with a computer but the economic benefits have become very low. If you want to start a mining activity you can contact a company like Just Mining, a key player in France, which offers ASICS, RIGs ...

 As a reminder, the bitcoin blockchain is for example based on several technologies including transaction timestamping, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, cryptography, shared computing power and a new consensus algorithm (Proof of Work, PoW). This consensus mechanism consists in solving a mathematical problem requiring computing power provided by computer hardware.The miner must therefore hash each transaction in the memory pool. Once the transactions have been hashed, these "hashes" are then organized through the Merkle tree (also called "hash tree"). The goal is to organize the hashes into pairs, then hash them until the "top of the tree" is reached, also called "root hash".

To adapt to the competition between miners, the protocol states that each block is created every 10 mins for Bitcoin, 15 seconds for Ethereum. Every 10mins a new block is created, the network notifies the participating miners and rewards are distributed, currently one block is rewarded with 12.5 Bitcoin, however an internal mechanism specific to Bitcoin divides the reward every 210,000 blocks, this phenomenon is called "halving". The next one will take place around May 18, 2020. Finally, miners get rewards through block creation but also through confirmed transaction fees on the network.

 Another important element, the block size for bitcoin is limited to 1 Mega Byte, for other crypto-currencies it can be up to 8 Mega Bytes. This block creation time makes the exercise even more difficult. The competition is tough between each miner to win the reward and the energy demand is huge when it comes to solving this mathematical problem. For block creation it is necessary to use a SHA function, a cryptographic hash function. For Bitcoin you have to use SHA-256 and for Ethereum Ethash. The mining process is an essential concept for a decentralized network, it is the strong point of the blockchains, which allows a high degree of security without the need for a central body

What is a mining pool?

 As explained above, the mining process is energy intensive because it requires a lot of power and it is difficult to find the right result on your own. It should be kept in mind that the probability of creating a block on its own is very low, it is estimated that a well-equipped independent miner has a 1 in 8,000,000 chance to find the correct mathematical result. However, solutions exist to allow individuals to mine cryptocurrencies, like "mining pools", communities of miners who work together to solve the problems of proof of work. With a mining pool your chances increase considerably and you will be paid regularly.

 Source : miningpools.com

 Thus, a mining pool acts like an individual miner, but in reality it is composed of hundreds of individual miners. Henceforth your success rate increases sharply, because you are no longer alone in wanting to solve mathematical calculations. For the distribution of the rewards, the mining pools follow a simple logic, the reward is correlated with the quantity of computing power brought to the network. The following representation allows you to visually understand the architecture of a blockchain network:

 Source : https://hackernoon.com/bitcoin-miners-beware-invalid-blocks-need-not-apply-51c293ee278b

There is a real competition between all the mining pools. Recently, Changpen Zhao, the CEO of Binance, announced that a Binance Mining Pool would soon arrive. A big player, which step by step takes a lot of space in the crypto indsutry (binance bought CoinMarkertcap[1]). The following list shows the main Bitcoin mining pools in the world: AntPool (25.2%), BTC.TOP (11.2%), BTC.com (10.2%), Bixin (8.1%), BTCC Pool (7.3%), F2Pool (5.4%).

 Concerning Ethereum, the three best known are Ethpool, F2pool and Dwarfpool. In France, the company Cruxpool (https://www.cruxpool.com/) currently dominates the market and has recently raised 475,000 euros,[2] "to prove that it is possible in France in 2020 to offer cost-effective cryptocurrencies mining services and lead the way in the development of the sector"[3].

Finally, how does the mining pool operate to pay you? It happens in three steps, payment of the mining pool management fees, remuneration of the mining pool, and finally redistribution among all the miners.

How do you choose your mining pools?

The following points should be carefully considered in order to select the best mining pool. Firstly, the number of blocks found per hour, indeed if the number of blocks found per hour is low, the mining pool is not recommended. Secondly, the number of miners in the pool,. Finally the cost of the mining pool. You have to be very attentive to theses different points in order to generate a correct passive income.

[1] https://www.coindesk.com/binances-coinmarketcap-acquisition-is-a-bet-that-crypto-really-is-for-the-masses

 [2]  https://www.thecointribune.com/actualites/ethereum-le-pool-de-minage-francais-cruxpool-leve-475-000-euros/

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