This is a companion explainer to episode three of Track One, Little Rock Public Radio's Investigative podcast.
Understanding cryptomines is like understanding the plot of a Dr. Seuss book. Its surreal, but as you're reading along, the ideas start to make sense.
What are cryptomines?
Cryptomines are giant groups of computers designed to hunt for cryptocurrency. The mines are usually enclosed in metal boxes. They stack to become the size of storage cubes, in rows the size of a baseball field.
What's happening inside the mine?
Inside the mine, each computer is trying to find a key to open a lock. The lock is owned by the network.
The mines make trillions of guesses a second. Each guess is called a hash.
They generate numbers for the hashes by mixing three ingredients.
1. The constant: a number reused every hash.
2. A nonce: a number used once.
3. Receipt of the previous transaction.
The receipt of the previous transaction comes from a waiting room called the mempool.
Trillions of times per second, the three ingredients go into the cryptomine, and a 64 character number comes out.
Each time, the mine checks the number with the network.
“Is it this?” the mine asks The Network.
“No,” says The Network. The number does not fit the lock.
To make it harder, about every ten minutes, The Network changes the lock.
So, the mine makes hashes again and again, until eventually it gets it right.
There's a reward for the right answer: one crypto coin, or actually 3.125 Bitcoin as of this posting.
Unlocking the lock for other currencies generates different amounts.
Then the coin is added to the blockchain. This a ledger with a record of every successful hash.
This explainer was made by Josie Lenora using cut paper, and Nathan Treece using photograph and photoshop.
