⛏️ Mining Mechanics: Nonce, Hash & Difficulty
Learn how miners find valid block hashes through trial and error
Your Progress
0 / 5 completed⚙️ How Mining Works
Mining is the process of finding a nonce that produces a hash meeting the difficulty target. It's pure trial and error.
The Mining Process
Collect Transactions
📝Gather pending transactions from the mempool
Build Block Header
📦Include previous hash, timestamp, merkle root
Try Different Nonces
🔢Hash the block with nonce = 0, 1, 2, 3...
Check Result
🔍Does the hash meet the difficulty target?
Broadcast or Retry
📡If yes, broadcast! If no, increment nonce and repeat
⛏️ Interactive: Mining Simulator
Try finding a valid hash (must start with 0000):
Current Nonce
0
Attempts
0
Click Start to begin mining
Note: This is a simplified simulation. Real mining requires finding hashes with many more leading zeros (19+ zeros for Bitcoin).
What Makes It Hard?
Randomness
Hashing is unpredictable—you cannot calculate, only guess
Tiny Target
Bitcoin requires 19+ leading zeros (~1 in 10²² chance)
Speed Required
Miners try trillions of hashes per second
Constant Repetition
Every failed attempt is wasted computational work
Real Mining Speed
- •Modern ASIC: 100 TH/s (100 trillion hashes/second)
- •Entire Network: 400 EH/s (400 million trillion hashes/second)
- •Average Time: 10 minutes to find one valid block across all miners