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Bitcoin Mining and Consensus Mechanisms Flashcards

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  1. What is the 'coinbase maturity' rule in Bitcoin?

    Answer: Newly minted coinbase outputs cannot be spent until 100 confirmations have passed

    Coinbase outputs are unspendable for 100 blocks after they are created, protecting against chain reorganizations that could invalidate miner rewards.

  2. What is the relationship between hashrate and difficulty in Bitcoin?

    Answer: Difficulty increases as hashrate increases to maintain the ~10-minute block interval

    Every 2,016 blocks, the protocol raises difficulty if blocks were found faster than 10 minutes, keeping average block time constant as global hashrate grows.

  3. Which component of Bitcoin mining hardware directly performs SHA-256 hashing computations?

    Answer: The hashing chip (ASIC die)

    The ASIC die contains thousands of SHA-256 hashing engines that perform the double-SHA256 computations required to find valid block hashes.

  4. What is 'orphaned block' (also called a stale block) in Bitcoin?

    Answer: A valid block that is not part of the main chain because another chain has more work

    An orphaned block is a validly solved block that loses the race to be included in the heaviest chain when two miners find blocks nearly simultaneously.

  5. What does the acronym 'PPLNS' stand for in mining pool payout schemes?

    Answer: Pay Per Last N Shares

    PPLNS (Pay Per Last N Shares) distributes block rewards among miners based on their shares submitted in a sliding window, rewarding consistent long-term contributors.

  6. What is the purpose of the 'version' field in a Bitcoin block header?

    Answer: It signals support for protocol upgrades and soft forks via BIP9 version bits

    The block version field, especially under BIP9, allows miners to signal readiness for proposed soft fork upgrades by setting specific bits in this 4-byte field.

  7. How does the Lightning Network relate to Bitcoin mining and on-chain fees?

    Answer: Lightning reduces on-chain transaction volume, potentially decreasing fee pressure for miners long-term

    By moving the majority of small payments off-chain into payment channels, Lightning reduces on-chain congestion, which can lower average transaction fees miners collect per block.