Mining is how proof-of-work blockchains (Bitcoin, Ethereum Classic, Dogecoin, Litecoin) produce new blocks. Miners compete to find a hash of the next candidate block that meets a difficulty target. The first miner to find a valid hash broadcasts the block, collects the block reward, and the network moves on.
Finding a valid hash has no shortcut — it's trial-and-error at massive scale. Bitcoin miners in 2026 perform roughly 700 exahashes per second (7×10²⁰ hashes per second) across the network. The difficulty auto-adjusts every 2,016 blocks so that blocks arrive, on average, every 10 minutes.
Economics: - Miners pay for electricity and ASIC hardware (purpose-built Bitcoin-hashing chips). - They earn block subsidy (newly issued BTC, halving every four years) plus transaction fees. - A miner that controls >50% of hash rate could censor or rewrite recent history — the "51% attack." On Bitcoin this is economically prohibitive; on smaller PoW chains it has happened.
Mining centralization is a real concern: four large pools control most of Bitcoin's hash rate in 2026. Pool members can leave for another pool any time, which keeps pool operators honest.