Introduction to the concept of proof of work

This article is mainly focused on the introduction of the concept of Proof of Work, what it entails and how it works while also giving a brief introduction to the concept of mining.

What is Proof of Work?

Proof of work is a technique or consensus mechanism used in cryptocurrencies to verify the accuracy of a new transaction being added to a blockchain. This is cogent because given that blockchain has no central authority the proof of work then, kind of takes the work of verifying the blocks that would be added to the chain.

Proof of work prevents users from carrying out fraudulent transactions in the blockchain and it is important to note that the proof of work requires a huge amount of processing power as against its counterpart proof of stake

Now every cryptocurrency has a Blockchain, which is a chain of blocks containing all the transactions called the ledger and for each block to be confirmed, a crypto miner must generate a target hash that is less than or equal to that of the block.

To accomplish this, miners use mining devices that quickly generate computations. The aim is to be the first miner with the target hash because that miner is the one who can update the blockchain and receive crypto rewards.

Proof of work operates well because getting the target hash is difficult but verifying it isn’t and this process then makes it difficult enough to prevent the manipulation of activity records. Also once the target hash is found, it is easier for other miners to go through it

And so the work per se in the proof of work that is being done, generating a target hash that is equal to that of the block and it includes solving different puzzles to validate the block.

Mining is the process of adding a block to the blockchain and miners validate blocks by solving difficult math puzzles the miner who solves it first adds the block to the blockchain to earn 12.5 bitcoin