diff --git a/ch10.asciidoc b/ch10.asciidoc index dc6c59a4..393f2fb2 100644 --- a/ch10.asciidoc +++ b/ch10.asciidoc @@ -882,7 +882,7 @@ Let's look at a specific example. Assume a miner has purchased mining hardware w If the miner does find a single block in that timeframe, the payout of 6.25 bitcoin, at approximately $1,000 per bitcoin, will result in a single payout of $6,250, which will produce a net profit of about $750. However, the chance of finding a block in a 4-year period depends on the miner's luck. He might find two blocks in 4 years and make a larger profit. Or he might not find a block for 5 years and suffer a big financial loss. Even worse, the difficulty of the bitcoin Proof-of-Work algorithm is likely to go up significantly over that period, at the current rate of growth of hashing power, meaning the miner has, at most, one year to break even before the hardware is effectively obsolete and must be replaced by more powerful mining hardware. Financially this only makes sense at very low electricity cost (less than 1 cent per kW-hour) and only at very large scale. -Mining pools coordinate many hundreds or thousands of miners, over specialized pool-mining protocols. The individual miners configure their mining equipment to connect to a pool server, after creating an account with the pool. Their mining hardware remains connected to the pool server while mining, synchronizing their efforts with the other miners. Thus, the pool miners share the effort to mine a block and then share in the rewards. +Mining pools coordinate many hundreds or thousands of miners, over specialized pool-mining protocols. The individual miners configure their mining equipment to connect to a pool server, and specify a bitcoin address, which will receive their share of the rewards. Their mining hardware remains connected to the pool server while mining, synchronizing their efforts with the other miners. Thus, the pool miners share the effort to mine a block and then share in the rewards. Successful blocks pay the reward to a pool bitcoin address, rather than individual miners. The pool server will periodically make payments to the miners' bitcoin addresses, once their share of the rewards has reached a certain threshold. Typically, the pool server charges a percentage fee of the rewards for providing the pool-mining service.