„What is Bitcoin Mining? Have you ever wondered how Bitcoin is generated? This short video is an animated introduction to Bitcoin Mining.“
The process of mining happens when you use a computer program to solve mathematical problems with the difficulty level that is determined by the Bitcoin network. This difficulty level is programmed into each block of the Bitcoin network which contains information that is needed to verify transactions and add new bitcoins to the network. Once all of the computational power is exhausted, the next difficulty level can be found and the process starts again.
This enables the Bitcoin network to establish a consensus about the allocation of bitcoins in a real-time manner. The amount of time that a solution is put up for verification is proportional to the length of time it takes to find the next difficulty level and is set to 25 minutes.
The software that is used to solve the mathematical problems is called a „mining computer,“ which is essentially an „expensive computer that is linked to the Internet.“ It’s simply programmed to go through a lengthy series of problems to find the right solution. This is difficult work for the mining computer, requiring a large capacity of computing power and processing time.