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How many views are required on the website to approve for Google AdSense?
Hi, It's a complete myth that you need to have traffic to get adsense approval on your blog. I've approved many adsense accounts of different countries by now and tested a lot of things regarding them. If you're aiming for a long term blog, here are a few simple things you (or anyone) can follow: GeRead more
Hi,
It’s a complete myth that you need to have traffic to get adsense approval on your blog. I’ve approved many adsense accounts of different countries by now and tested a lot of things regarding them.
If you’re aiming for a long term blog, here are a few simple things you (or anyone) can follow:
If you’ve already got disapproval from the Adsense team, here are a few points you need to take care of before applying:
Also, a few more points you can take care of,
So, this is all you need to take care of while applying for adsense for the first time or even after 100 times, you’ll definitely get the approval.
See lessWhat are the nitty-gritty of becoming a blogger?
What are you going to write about? Typically, you want your blogs to have consistency in what you are writing about. Or, have a theme. Your blog is where you will be able to share your thoughts and build a relationship with your audience. It is a great way to provide valuable information and enableRead more
Here are a few tips to writing an effective blog post:
- Headlines matter – people are busy, attention spans are shorter, and there are more distractions then ever for our audience. So how do you pull people in and entice them to read your post? It’s with your headline!
- Break your post up – you don’t want to write 1,000 or more words all in paragraph form – use bullets, pictures, or other items to help break your post up.
- Body needs to be engaging – make sure the body of your post is engaging and as interactive as possible. You can make your post more interactive by using video, images, and asking questions.
- Call to action – the point of writing a blog post as I mentioned earlier is to create a relationship with your audience and ultimately create brand awareness. So, what do you want them to do? Make sure you include whatever call to action you want your audience to do.
- Cross promotion – your blog can be a great way to also bring attention to other blogs on your page or events. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to let your audience know about some of the other things you have going on!
See lessHow do I earn more than 100 dollars online?
Good answer
Good answer
See lessHow to redirect 404 error pages to home page in Blogger – 404 error
404 error pages – what is it, why do they occur? Your Blogger blog returns a 404 response code when the actual URL does not exist. That means the server could not find the requested URL (broken links or dead links). Learn more about HTTP status codes. 404 error pages is an issue found on all websiteRead more
404 error pages – what is it, why do they occur?
Your Blogger blog returns a 404 response code when the actual URL does not exist. That means the server could not find the requested URL (broken links or dead links). Learn more about HTTP status codes.
404 error pages is an issue found on all websites and occur commonly due to such instances.
How to deal with 404 error page in Blogger
In your webmaster tools account there is a section called crawls. In there you can find all your 404 error pages. Once those URLs has been fetched by crawlers and but now they couldn’t find what they are looking for. The reason is that you might have changed you blog post URL or deleted your blog post.
How to deal all those 404 error URLs in webmaster tools? You can fix all those error URLs by redirecting them permanently to existing pages (301 permanent redirection). By using Blogger custom redirects you can redirect 404 error URLs to existing pages.
Related: Free Broken link checker tools
The error URLs that you see in your webmaster account are discovered by Google bots. Anyhow 404 error pages still show up in your blog. That maybe because you linked to one of your blog post with misspelled URL or someone might linked to non-existing URL in your blog.
Related: Internal linking and its benefits
404 error pages are not bad for SEO and so we suggest you to leave the 404 error pages as it is. The only thing is that it gives a bad user experience and Blogger by default displays a 404 error page with the following message.
Sorry. The page you are looking for in this blog does not exist.
Handling 404 error pages in Blogger
The default 404 error page /message in Blogger is somewhat not interesting. So you can create your own custom 404 error page or you can redirect 404 error pages to your blog home page. Personally we don’t prefer redirecting 404 pages to home page rather you can customize your 404 page with useful links in it.
In Blogger there in an option called “custom page not found” in search preferences. By using HTML you can create your own custom 404 error page and that is a decent way to handle 404 error pages.
You can show off like:
Oops! 404. This page does not exist (moved or renamed).
Category 1
Category 2
Category 3
Category 4
Related: What are labels and how to use labels in Blogger
How to redirect 404 error pages to home page in Blogger
You can redirect your blog visitors to homepage, but don’t make them go blind. So instead of redirecting them directly to your homepage, you can mention them about the actual issue and automatically redirect within few seconds.
Here is the code, just copy it and paste it in your custom page not found field (settings >> search preferences >> custom page not found)
<h1>Oops 404!</h1> <br><b>The page you are looking for may have been renamed or does not exist in this server.</b> <br><br><b>You will be redirected to homepage shortly.</b> <script> blogger_redirect = setTimeout(function() { location.pathname= "/" }, 7000); </script>Related: How to automatically redirect Blogger blog
From now on visitors who land on your blogs 404 error page will be notified about the 404 error and will be redirected shortly. In the above code where 7000 is the redirection time in milliseconds which you can change it as per your wish.
Hope this post helped you on how to redirect 404 error pages to home page in Blogger. Also you learned some possible solutions to handle 404 error pages in Blogger. Please share this post and feel free to leave your comments below. Subscribe to our blog RSS feeds to get more updates.
Why can’t I access Google Trends?
What is Google Trends? Google Trends is a public web feature of Google Inc. based on Google Search that shows the search volume of a particular search term or keyword in different regions of the world and in different languages. Why Google Trends is not working? Their may be several reasons behind nRead more
What is Google Trends?
Google Trends is a public web feature of Google Inc. based on Google Search that shows the search volume of a particular search term or keyword in different regions of the world and in different languages.
Why Google Trends is not working?
Their may be several reasons behind not working of Google Trends.
Maybe the Google Trends server is down or the app is under maintenance. Other then this, there are other common issues that can interrupt your service.
But the most common problem is? Google Trends is not opening. This can be a real problem, for obvious reasons, especially for those who use it urgently.
If you are facing trouble while accessing Google Trends, read on. You will find a number of fixes for it.
Below are the most common solution which may help to access Google trends.
If these solution did not work then you can make contact with Google Trends team.
Is Google Trends is banned?
No, Google trends is currently not banned.
Is Google Trends is closed?
See lessHow can I transfer a Blogger blog to WordPress?
Great post. Its really helpful.
Great post. Its really helpful.
See lessHow do you download VS code in Ubuntu?
If you are a programmer, chances are you might already be familiar with the nuances and capabilities of Visual Studio Code. In this guide, you will learn how to install VS Code on Ubuntu and its related distros. For those who might be wondering what Visual Studio Code is all about, here’s a small inRead more
If you are a programmer, chances are you might already be familiar with the nuances and capabilities of Visual Studio Code.
In this guide, you will learn how to install VS Code on Ubuntu and its related distros. For those who might be wondering what Visual Studio Code is all about, here’s a small inkling into its build features.
What Is Visual Studio Code?
Microsoft Visual Studio Code, as the name suggests, is an open-source code editor powered by Microsoft. It offers plenty of debugging options to the end-users, including embedded Git control, along with syntax highlighting, code completion, code refactoring, an integrated terminal, and snippets.
Visual Studio Code, as a platform, syncs well with Windows, macOS, and even Linux.
There are three prominent ways to install Visual Studio Code on Ubuntu. The first method is to install it from the terminal, using the snap package. The second way is to use APT along with the package repository provided by Microsoft. These repositories cater to Linux users specifically.
1. Installing the VS Code Snap Package
The snap package for Visual Studio Code within Linux is solely maintained and updated by Microsoft. This way, you will always be sure of getting one of the best quality software for yourself.
As a requisite, you can install snaps either from the command line or via Ubuntu Software.
To install the Visual Studio Code snap package, open the terminal and type the following command to kickstart the installation process:
This is it; once the installation is complete, you can open Visual Studio Code from the terminal or the Applications menu.
2. Installing VS Code Using APT
Alternatively, you can install Visual Studio Code using Microsoft’s repository and the default package manager on Ubuntu, which is APT.
First of all, update all the packages on your system using the following commands:
Power users can also issue this code in one single line:
Once you have updated and upgraded the packages, it is time to install the necessary dependencies for the repository. Type the following command in your terminal:
Then, use wget to import Microsoft’s GPG key:
To enable the VS Code repository, issue the following command:
As soon as the repository is enabled, all you have to do is install the software package:
To update your existing VS Code version to the newest available version, run the update/upgrade commands in this manner:
This will recognize the newest versions available and update your existing version set as per the latest release.
3. Installing Visual Studio Code Using the GUI
You can also install Microsoft Visual Studio Code from your desktop’s GUI. If you are not a fan of the terminal, using the GUI for installing the package is your next best option.
To install Visual Studio Code, launch the Ubuntu Software app from the Applications menu. Search for Code and select the first result. Then, click on Install.
Once the installation is complete, you can open Visual Studio Code from the terminal or directly from the Applications menu.
Using VS Code for the First Time
Post-installation, as soon as you open VS Code on your Ubuntu machine, you would be greeted with the following screen:
If everything looks in order, you can install the extensions and configure the editor as per your preferences.
Writing Code With Visual Studio Code in Ubuntu
Installing Visual Studio Code on Ubuntu is a rather simple process. Given the various ways of installing packages, you can pick and choose a process at your convenience, so that you are able to download the software and use it whenever you want.
Visual Studio Code isn’t the only code editor available to you as a Linux user. You can test other editors and find which one suits you the best.
See lessHow do I earn money through crypto?
How To Make Money From Cryptocurrency When Bitcoin was first introduced, no one expected it to blow up to the heights it is soaring in today in terms of value and popularity along with other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Monero, and Maker. So, you are wondering how to make money from cryptocurrRead more
How To Make Money From Cryptocurrency
When Bitcoin was first introduced, no one expected it to blow up to the heights it is soaring in today in terms of value and popularity along with other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Monero, and Maker. So, you are wondering how to make money from cryptocurrency, and if you are too late to board the money-making train that it spawned? Luckily, the time is better than ever and investing, trading, mining, and staking are the best methods of making a profit.
Investing
One of the most popular strategies in making money with cryptocurrency is investing. It essentially works the same way as you would invest in a business, but there is a small twist. Instead of putting in your money and seeing the business boom and making a profit back to you on its own, it is much better to use the buy-and-hold strategy.
Of course, this is a bit risky, like any investment, since you would be putting in your money into something that is not worth anything at the moment, only to sell it in the time of need by others.
Looking at the past, whoever did this strategy correctly made quite a lot of money, especially if they have been saving up Bitcoin from the point where it was worth a couple of cents, to today, where it is worth thousands.
If you are looking for a long-term strategy on how to make money from cryptocurrency, investing is certainly the one for you. This is especially the case if you have an understanding of the market and can predict the shifts that are going to happen in it.
Trading
Unlike investing, trading is more of a short-term strategy where you are going to make profits in bursts. To do this, you have to own some kind of cryptocurrency, to begin with, and trade them on one of many platforms for another currency. Trading involves a bit more risk since the crypto market can be quite volatile.
The prices can increase and decrease in a matter of minutes, which is why this strategy requires you to have good technical and analytical skills. Because of that, we would say that this option is recommended for those with more experience with cryptocurrencies, while the investment is much safer for newcomers, especially if they are interested in more popular cryptocurrencies.
If you want to get ahead of the curve by being able to trade 24/7, you can also use a trading bot to do all the trading for you. Setting up a trading bot is of course not a walk in the park, but once you have it up and running when the AI gathers enough information about the chars and trading patterns, they can do the job as well as you can, if not better.
Mining
The term mining is something you have probably heard a hundred times already. Not only because it is by far the most popular method of making money through cryptocurrency, but also because due to its popularity, finding PC parts became rather difficult, thus you could have often heard about it on the news.
Mining a cryptocurrency is the option that has the least risk since you are generating the currency into your wallet via mining rigs. The only bigger risk is if you are going to keep the currency and mine more of it by the time it drops in price or not.
To become a highly profiting cryptocurrency miner, you do not have to put as much effort as you would into the other methods. However, you will have to invest some money into mining rigs, which are essentially PCs that will do nothing but run a program that mines the cryptocurrency, and of course, you might struggle to find the parts for those rigs as well.
If you are a risk chaser, mining can give you the biggest boom in profit if you jump to mine a cryptocurrency that is very easy to generate while it is also increasing in value over time. Be careful with this tactic, because while you will not essentially lose any more mining a cryptocurrency that might be worthless, you will still lose precious time that could be invested elsewhere.
Staking
The technique that is recommended only to those who are experienced with the world of cryptocurrencies is staking. How to make money with cryptocurrency via staking you wonder? Well, it essentially puts you into the role of a bank.
Any coin you come by, whether it is by investing, trading, or mining, you can lend to a network so it can use them in their transactions, giving you a small percentage for each transaction. Finding a network that has a lot of trading is the key element in thriving in profits via this technique, which is where the previous knowledge is very handy.
Crypto Esports Betting
If you would tell anyone a decade ago if e-sports would be as popular as they are today, they would just give you a quick laugh. However, things have taken quite a big surprise in the gaming industry, as e-sports are slowly becoming more popular than traditional sports. Certain events have already had more viewers than the Super Bowl in the US, which is very impressive.
Like with actual sports, you can bet on e-sports. Since it is quite new to a lot of bookmakers, the odds they give are sometimes very interesting, and if you are familiar with the e-sport scene just a little bit, you can easily make a quick buck by crypto betting.
There are crypto betting sites where you can place a bet with cryptocurrency, but not all betting sites and bookmakers will provide you options for all the events. Some of them only focus on a certain game, some of them do not go in-depth, only allowing you to bet on a winning team instead of kills, towers, objectives, and all the other creative betting options e-sports offers.
Can I start a blog with zero investment?
So you’re wondering how to start a blog, but you don’t have a bunch of money to spend on domain names and hosting. Would you believe me if I told you that wasn’t an obstacle? One of the best things about blogging is that it’s totally free to start, and while you can spend a ton of money on everythinRead more
So you’re wondering how to start a blog, but you don’t have a bunch of money to spend on domain names and hosting.
Would you believe me if I told you that wasn’t an obstacle?
One of the best things about blogging is that it’s totally free to start, and while you can spend a ton of money on everything from a custom domain name to a special website theme, you certainly don’t have to.
Here’s what you need to know to start a blog with no money down.
How to Start a Blog for Free in Seven Easy Steps
For the purpose of this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to set up a blog on WordPress.com, the free version of the WordPress platform.
While this platform is a fantastic option for beginning bloggers, it does have its limitations and drawbacks, which I’ll go through later in this blog.
For now, here’s what you need to know about setting up a free blog on WordPress.com:
Head to WordPress
WordPress is the best place to start a free blog because, with few exceptions, the free WordPress.com platform is as powerful and user-friendly as the paid version.
That said, the first step to creating a free blog is to head to the WordPress.com homepage and choose the “Start a Blog” option from the bottom of the page.
Note: I recommend reading through this entire post before jumping right into the setup process.
Starting a blog this way is a simple, beginner-friendly process that won’t take more than a few minutes of your time.
Choose a Theme
One of the many reasons people love WordPress is that the platform features dozens of beautiful, free themes for your blog.
The second step of setting up your free blog will be choosing a theme.
While there are many theme options available, it’s best to opt for a clean, simple theme that allows your blog content to shine and makes for an easy user experience for you and your readers.
Remember that even if you pick a theme and decide you don’t like it down the road, it’s easy to change your theme later.
Pick a domain name
Since you’re setting up a free WordPress blog on the WordPress.com platform, your URL of choice will look like this once it’s finished: http://yourblogname.wordpress.com
If you’d like to drop the “wordpress.com” portion of the URL so that it reads http://yourblogname.com, instead, you can purchase a domain name and hosting at a later date, but right now we’ll focus on setting up a blog without spending any money on those things.
Be advised that the “wordpress.com” portion of the URL doesn’t affect your blog’s function or visibility in any way – it’s simply a fixture of the free platform.
However in most cases your site will not be found through a search engine like Google or Bing. To find your blog someone would have to input your URL directly into the address bar, this case- http://yourblogname.wordpress.com
Select the Free Plan
If you choose to, you can always upgrade to a more advanced plan down the road, but the free plan will suit you just fine for now.
Create Your Account
Customize Your Blog
Post Your First Blog!
From there, you’ll be directed to a screen that will allow you to enter and edit text and publish your very first blog post on your new site!
Ten Tips for Happy Blogging
Once you’ve set up your new blog, you’ll probably want to jump right into blogging. In order to make each post you write as successful as possible, follow these tips:
WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org: What’s the Difference?
Now that you know how to start a free blog and how to blog effectively, it’s important that you also know about the potential downfalls of the “Free blogging” option.
While I mentioned this in the intro to this blog, it’s time to dig a bit deeper here.
While a free blog is a fantastic place for a beginning blogger to start, it’s likely that eventually, as your blog and your business expand, you’ll find that the free version of WordPress (WordPress.com) no longer fulfills all of your needs.
WordPress.com
WordPress.com is the open-source platform where the majority of new bloggers start.
It’s free, fast, reliable, and offers beautiful templates.
The free version of WordPress allows users to pay for certain features that allow them to expand the usefulness and functionality of their site while maintaining the overall free structure of the platform.
WordPress.org
WordPress.org is where bloggers go when they want to get serious about running a business.
With WordPress.org, users actually own a copy of the WordPress content management system (CMS).
While this copy is free, users on WordPress.org are required to locate their own hosting company to provide a home base for their WordPress site.
This also requires users to secure their own domain name. This can easily be done through a reputable third-party company like InMotin Hosting.
In return for these extra steps, WordPress.org rewards you with full control over your entire site and all of the software associated with it. The only potential limitation is the bounds of the hosting package itself.
The Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
While both of WordPress’s platforms are high-quality and built for bloggers and website owners, it can be tough to decide which platform is right for you.
To help you decide, check out this plan comparison:
The Cost of WordPress.com
While WordPress.com is a free platform, there are costs associated with maintaining and upgrading it to suit a blogger’s changing needs. Have a look at the most common costs here:
Users who want to stick with WordPress.com can typically select from one of the platform’s three plans.
For example, people who choose a Business plan will get 13 GB of storage, built-in ad blocking, VideoPress, and custom design all for $99/year.
This is a great option for people who want enhanced WordPress.com features without downloading WordPress.org.
The Cost of WordPress.org
If you’d rather make the most of all of the features that WordPress has to offer, you’re best off simply downloading a copy of the open source software.
To date, there have been more than 46 million downloads of WordPress.org around the world.
To do this, you’ll simply need to head to the WordPress.org site and click “Download WordPress.”
If you decided to setup a WordPress.com blog first and now want to switch to a self-hosted version then you need to download a copy of the CMS because you’ll have to transfer all of your data over to it.
Once you’ve transferred your content over, you can get to work installing any of the advanced themes and plugins offered by WordPress.org.
For the more advanced users installing WordPress manually might be good option but not one I would typically recommend.
Instead it is much more sensible to setup self-hosted WordPress through a web hosting company.
Setting up WordPress is extremely easy when going through a web hosting company (web hosting is a necessary service for a self-hosted WordPress blog) plus you will be able to register your domain at the same time and not have to go through the trouble of transferring your content from WordPress.com later down the road .
In terms of cost, the main cost associated with a WordPress.org account comes in the form of hosting.
Depending upon which plan you choose, you can expect to pay prices as low as $5 each month.
Keep in mind that it’s possible to change your hosting options as your site grows in order to ensure continued performance and functionality.
The Verdict: WordPress.com or WordPress.org?
By now you’re probably wondering which WordPress option is better for you.
Look at it this way: by starting out on WordPress.org, you save yourself the trouble of initiating a content transfer down the road and give yourself the benefit of gaining all of the advanced features and high-quality support the .org option offers from the get-go.
This can save you time and money while also furnishing you with a more advanced blog from the start.
While WordPress.com offers free site hosting, the platform also features some considerable restrictions.
From restricting your use of membership and e-commerce features to limiting the number of themes and plugins you have access to, WordPress.com is very clearly a platform designed for beginners.
Some of the main limitations of WordPress.com include the following:
WordPress.org, on the other hand, is a powerful self-hosted platform that allows you the luxury of full control over your blog.
For this reason and many others, the self-hosted WordPress.org version it’s the platform of choice for more than 74.6 million sites worldwide.
What’s more, upwards of 52% of all the new domain names in the U.S. are being run on WordPress.
While self-hosted WordPress.org comes with more responsibility than its .com cousin, it is without question the more powerful and expansive of the two options and, if you’re serious about blogging, it should be the one you choose to use.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve learned that it’s possible to start a blog with $0 but their are better options you’re well on your way to blogging success.
Be sure to check out my “How to Start a Blog” tutorial to setup a self-hosted WordPress.org blog, to learn more about how to build a website that people will love and to get insider WordPress tips and tricks, sign up for my free WordPress Academy today!
See lessWhat You Need to Mine Bitcoins
Although individuals were able to compete for blocks with a regular at-home personal computer early on in Bitcoin's history, this is no longer the case. The reason for this is that the difficulty of mining Bitcoin changes over time. In order to ensure the blockchain functions smoothly and can procesRead more
Although individuals were able to compete for blocks with a regular at-home personal computer early on in Bitcoin’s history, this is no longer the case. The reason for this is that the difficulty of mining Bitcoin changes over time.
In order to ensure the blockchain functions smoothly and can process and verify transactions, the Bitcoin network aims to have one block produced every 10 minutes or so. However, if there are 1 million mining rigs competing to solve the hash problem, they’ll likely reach a solution faster than a scenario in which 10 mining rigs are working on the same problem. For that reason, Bitcoin is designed to evaluate and adjust the difficulty of mining every 2,016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks.1
When there is more computing power collectively working to mine for bitcoins, the difficulty level of mining increases in order to keep block production at a stable rate. Less computing power means the difficulty level decreases. At today’s network size, a personal computer mining for bitcoin will almost certainly find nothing.
Mining hardware
All of this is to say that, in order to mine competitively, miners must now invest in powerful computer equipment like a graphics processing unit (GPU) or, more realistically, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). These can run from $500 into the tens of thousands of dollars. Some miners—particularly Ethereum miners—buy individual graphics cards as a low-cost way to cobble together mining operations.
Today, Bitcoin mining hardware is almost entirely made up of ASIC machines, which in this case, specifically do one thing and one thing only: Mine for bitcoins. Today’s ASICs are many orders of magnitude more powerful than CPUs or GPUs and gain both more hashing power and energy efficiency every few months as new chips are developed and deployed. Today’s miners can produce almost 200 TH/s at only 27.5 joules per terahash.5
An analogy
Say I tell three friends that I’m thinking of a number between one and 100, and I write that number on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope. My friends don’t have to guess the exact number; they just have to be the first person to guess any number that is less than or equal to it. And there is no limit to how many guesses they get.
Let’s say I’m thinking of the number 19. If Friend A guesses 21, they lose because 21 > 19. If Friend B guesses 16 and Friend C guesses 12, then they’ve both theoretically arrived at viable answers because of 16 < 19 and 12 < 19. There is no “extra credit” for Friend B, even though B’s answer was closer to the target answer of 19. Now imagine that I pose the “guess what number I’m thinking of” question, but I’m not asking just three friends, and I’m not thinking of a number between 1 and 100. Rather, I’m asking millions of would-be miners, and I’m thinking of a 64-digit hexadecimal number. Now you see that it’s going to be extremely hard to guess the right answer. If B and C both answer simultaneously, then the system breaks down.
In Bitcoin terms, simultaneous answers occur frequently, but at the end of the day, there can only be one winning answer. When multiple simultaneous answers are presented that are equal to or less than the target number, the Bitcoin network will decide by a simple majority—51%—which miner to honor.
Typically, it is the miner who has done the most work or, in other words, the one that verifies the most transactions. The losing block then becomes an “orphan block.” Orphan blocks are those that are not added to the blockchain. Miners who successfully solve the hash problem but haven’t verified the most transactions are not rewarded with bitcoin.
The Mining Process
What Is a ’64-Digit Hexadecimal Number’?
Here is an example of such a number:
The number above has 64 digits. Easy enough to understand so far. As you probably noticed, that number consists not just of numbers, but also letters of the alphabet. Why is that?
To understand what these letters are doing in the middle of numbers, let’s unpack the word “hexadecimal.”
The decimal system uses factors of 100 as its base (e.g., 1% = 0.01). This, in turn, means that every digit of a multi-digit number has 100 possibilities, zero through 99. In computing, the decimal system is simplified to base 10, or zero through nine.
“Hexadecimal,” on the other hand, means base 16 because “hex” is derived from the Greek word for six, and “deca” is derived from the Greek word for 10. In a hexadecimal system, each digit has 16 possibilities. But our numeric system only offers 10 ways of representing numbers (zero through nine). That’s why you have to add letters, specifically, letters A, B, C, D, E, and F.
If you are mining Bitcoin, you do not need to calculate the total value of that 64-digit number (the hash). I repeat: You do not need to calculate the total value of a hash.
What do ’64-digit hexadecimal numbers’ have to do with Bitcoin mining?
Remember that analogy, in which the number 19 was written on a piece of paper and put in a sealed envelope? In Bitcoin mining terms, that metaphorical undisclosed number in the envelope is called the target hash.
What miners are doing with those huge computers and dozens of cooling fans is guessing at the target hash. Miners make these guesses by randomly generating as many “nonces” as possible, as quickly as possible. A nonce is short for “number only used once,” and the nonce is the key to generating these 64-bit hexadecimal numbers I keep mentioning. In Bitcoin mining, a nonce is 32 bits in size—much smaller than the hash, which is 256 bits. The first miner whose nonce generates a hash that is less than or equal to the target hash is awarded credit for completing that block and is awarded the spoils of 6.25 BTC.
In theory, you could achieve the same goal by rolling a 16-sided die 64 times to arrive at random numbers, but why on Earth would you want to do that?
The screenshot below, taken from the site Blockchain.info, might help you put all this information together at a glance. You are looking at a summary of everything that happened when block No.490163 was mined. The nonce that generated the “winning” hash was 731511405. The target hash is shown on top. The term “Relayed by AntPool” refers to the fact that this particular block was completed by AntPool, one of the more successful mining pools (more about mining pools below).
As you see here, their contribution to the Bitcoin community is that they confirmed 1,768 transactions for this block. If you really want to see all 1,768 of those transactions for this block, go to this page and scroll down to the Transactions section.
How do I guess at the target hash?
All target hashes begin with a string of leading zeroes. There is no minimum target, but there is a maximum target set by the Bitcoin Protocol. No target can be greater than this number:
The winning hash for a bitcoin miner is one that has at least the minimum number of leading zeroes defined by the mining difficulty.
Here are some examples of randomized hashes and the criteria for whether they will lead to success for the miner:
To find such a hash value, you have to get a fast mining rig, or, more realistically, join a mining pool—a group of coin miners who combine their computing power and split the mined Bitcoin. Mining pools are comparable to Powerball clubs whose members buy lottery tickets en masse and agree to share any winnings. A disproportionately large number of blocks are mined by pools rather than by individual miners.
In other words, it’s literally just a numbers game. You cannot guess the pattern or make a prediction based on previous target hashes. At today’s difficulty levels, the odds of finding the winning value for a single hash is one in the tens of trillions.6 Not great odds if you’re working on your own, even with a tremendously powerful mining rig.
Not only do miners have to factor in the costs associated with expensive equipment necessary to stand a chance of solving a hash problem, but they must also consider the significant amount of electrical power mining rigs utilize in generating vast quantities of nonces in search of the solution. All told, Bitcoin mining is largely unprofitable for most individual miners as of this writing. The site CryptoCompare offers a helpful calculator that allows you to plug in numbers such as your hash speed and electricity costs to estimate the costs and benefits.
What Are Mining Pools?
The miner who discovers a solution to the puzzle first receives the mining rewards, and the probability that a participant will be the one to discover the solution is equal to the proportion of the total mining power on the network.
Participants with a small percentage of the mining power stand a very small chance of discovering the next block on their own. For instance, a mining card that one could purchase for a couple of thousand dollars would represent less than 0.001% of the network’s mining power. With such a small chance at finding the next block, it could be a long time before that miner finds a block, and the difficulty going up makes things even worse. The miner may never recoup their investment. The answer to this problem is mining pools.
Mining pools are operated by third parties and coordinate groups of miners. By working together in a pool and sharing the payouts among all participants, miners can get a steady flow of bitcoin starting the day they activate their miners. Statistics on some of the mining pools can be seen on Blockchain.info.
A Pickaxe Strategy for Bitcoin Mining
As mentioned above, the easiest way to acquire Bitcoin is to simply buy it on one of the many Bitcoin exchanges. Alternately, you can always leverage the “pickaxe strategy.” This is based on the old saw that during the 1849 California Gold Rush, the smart investment was not to pan for gold, but rather to make the pickaxes used for mining.
To put it in modern terms, invest in the companies that manufacture those pickaxes. In a cryptocurrency context, the pickaxe equivalent would be a company that manufactures equipment used for Bitcoin mining. You may consider looking into companies that make ASIC equipment or GPUs instead, for example.
Downsides of Mining
The risks of mining are often financial and regulatory. As aforementioned, Bitcoin mining, and mining in general, is a financial risk because one could go through all the effort of purchasing hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of mining equipment only to have no return on their investment. That said, this risk can be mitigated by joining mining pools. If you are considering mining and live in an area where it is prohibited, you should reconsider. It may also be a good idea to research your country’s regulation and overall sentiment toward cryptocurrency before investing in mining equipment.
One additional potential risk from the growth of Bitcoin mining (and other PoW systems as well) is the increasing energy usage required by the computer systems running the mining algorithms. Though microchip efficiency has increased dramatically for ASIC chips, the growth of the network itself is outpacing technological progress. As a result, there are concerns about Bitcoin mining’s environmental impact and carbon footprint.7
There are, however, efforts to mitigate this negative externality by seeking cleaner and green energy sources for mining operations (such as geothermal or solar sources), as well as utilizing carbon offset credits. Switching to less energy-intensive consensus mechanisms like proof-of-stake (PoS), which Ethereum has transitioned to, is another strategy; however, PoS comes with its own set of drawbacks and inefficiencies, such as incentivizing hoarding instead of using coins and a risk of centralization of consensus control.
Mining is a metaphor for introducing new bitcoins into the system because it requires (computational) work just as mining for gold or silver requires (physical) effort. Of course, the tokens that miners find are virtual and exist only within the digital ledger of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Why Do Bitcoins Need to Be Mined?
Because they are entirely digital records, there is a risk of copying, counterfeiting, or double-spending the same coin more than once. Mining solves these problems by making it extremely expensive and resource-intensive to try to do one of these things or otherwise “hack” the network. Indeed, it is far more cost-effective to join the network as a miner than to try to undermine it.
How Does Mining Confirm Transactions?
In addition to introducing new BTC into circulation, mining serves the crucial role of confirming and validating new transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. This is important because there is no central authority such as a bank, court, government, or anything else determining which transactions are valid and which are not. Instead, the mining process achieves a decentralized consensus through proof of work (PoW).
Why Does Mining Use So Much Electricity?
In the early days of Bitcoin, anybody could simply run a mining program from their PC or laptop. But as the network got larger and more people became interested in mining, the mining algorithm became more difficult. This is because the code for Bitcoin targets finding a new block once every 10 minutes, on average.1 If more miners are involved, the chances that somebody will solve the right hash quicker increases, and so the difficulty increases to restore that 10-minute goal. Now imagine if thousands, or even millions more times that mining power joins the network. That’s a lot of new machines consuming energy.
Is Bitcoin Mining Legal?
The legality of Bitcoin mining depends entirely on your geographic location. The concept of Bitcoin can threaten the dominance of fiat currencies and government control over the financial markets. For this reason, Bitcoin is completely illegal in certain places.
Bitcoin ownership and mining are legal in more countries than not. Some examples of places where it was illegal according to a 2018 report were Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nepal, and Pakistan.8 Since 2018, other countries have banned Bitcoin mining including Bangladesh, China, Dominican Republic, North Macedonia, Qatar, and Vietnam.9101112 Overall, Bitcoin use and mining remain legal across much of the globe.
Does Crypto Mining Damage Your GPU/Computer?
Because blockchain mining is very resource-intensive, it can put a large strain on your GPU or other mining hardware. In fact, it is not unheard of for GPUs to blow out, or for mining rigs to burst into flames.13 However, keeping your rigs running at a moderate pace and with sufficient power supplied, it is generally safe.
Can You Mine Bitcoin on Your iPhone?
No. Bitcoin mining today requires vast amounts of computing power and electricity to be competitive. Running a miner on a mobile device, even if it is part of a mining pool, will likely result in no earnings.