Mining Glossary

When a party has more than 51% of the network hashrate and uses it for an attack like double-spend.

Specialized hardware used to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The most common manufacturers are Bitmain, MicroBT, Canaan, Innosillicon, Ebang, and StrongU.

AsicBoost exploits the fact that Bitcoin block hashes are created from separate chunks of 64 bytes of data. Bitmain was accused of using it covertly at one point but now it is seen as the industry standard and an optimization.

Some communities like Monero try to prevent ASICs from coming onto the network. These communities feel like they are more decentralized without specialized hardware, a rather futile approach for the majority of coins. To be ASIC resistant a coin can do things such as hard forks every 6 months, make it more memory-intensive, etc.

Coined by the mining company, Layer1 , a Bitcoin Battery acts essentially as the inverse to an actual battery. Instead of storing excess energy, a powerplant or grid can consume it on-site, allowing them to globally distribute electricity with Bitcoin as the medium of exchange.

What every miner needs. Jesse Peltan created a hottub powered by Bitcoin miners in immersion cooling.

Newly issued coins by the network. For Bitcoin, the block reward is currently 6.25 BTC and halves every 4 years.

A common attack between mining pools. One mining pool will send the other pool valid hashrate but that won’t result in finding a block. So the pool is paying out for junk work and if it’s operating under a PPS model can get bankrupted.

Companies and individuals that help you buy and sell used mining equipment.

The fiat money printer goes bRRRR .

An anonymous Twitter account that ousts mining companies they believe are deceiving. They frequently target Bitmain, Ebang, Canaan, Northern Data and Layer1.

Often cited when some miners become too large and control too much of the network. Or when one country or jurisdiction has too large of a percent of the network. The more centralized the control of mining, the higher chance of a 51% attack.

An open-source ASIC miner written in C. CGMiner quickly became the industry standard in mining. The open-source code was taken by the ASIC manufacturers and modified to develop their own firmware. Since that point, CGMiner has become outdated.

The component that the ASIC manufacturers receive from foundries such as TSMC and Samsung. Manufacturers race to get the latest generation chips to maximize efficiency. Miners want the latest generation chips, so they can stack more Sats.

The progression of cloud mining, where you pay upfront and actually "own" the machine. You have to host the machine at the platform's facility.

Some mining farms sell forward hashrate in a contract with a specific price and settlement date. Anyone can buy this hashrate and earn the crypto the hashrate produces over the lifetime of the contract.

A data center that hosts other people machines for them. Usually charges a base rate for electricity or does a form of revenue split.

The amount paid to the operator of firmware usually paid for in hashrate.

The minimum difficulty the underlying blockchain will accept as a valid block. Effectively this is how hard it is for a miner to find a block (i.e. how hard a math problem miners need to solve). The higher the Network Difficulty the harder it is to find a block.

How much power it takes to generate a certain amount of hashrate. As a miner, you want lower power usage and a higher hashrate.

The delta between miner reported hashrate and pool reported hashrate.

The annual interest rate that miners pay for equipment financing and sometimes debt financing.

The Chinese firewall results in miners unable to connect to mining pool servers outside of China and vice versa without experiencing very poor efficiency.

Software that you can install onto your ASIC to perform functions like over and under-clocking.

The semiconductor business that supplies the chips to the ASIC manufacturers such as TSMC and Samsung.

A semi-flexible miner that can mine multiple algorithms and is less constrained than an ASIC (at the expense of efficiency).

Converts resources such as gas into electricity. Used to power ASICs.

One of the OG mining farms in Washington State that ended up going bankrupt. Did we mention they also did an ICO?

A graphics processing unit is a specialized, electronic circuit that can be used to mine altcoins amongst and for other applications, like gaming. The main manufacturers are AMD and Nvidia.

A term coined by Alejandro De la Torre , and almost stolen by Edward Evenson, it refers to an event that takes place every October / November when miners that are operating in the Sichuan province move to other areas of China once the rainy season is over and electricity prices are no longer so cheap.

When the block reward decreases. In Bitcoin, it happens every 4 years and the media loves making an event out of it. Even Vitalik Buterin thinks the media is too theatrical about Bitcoin halvings .

When a crypto's existing code is changed, an old version remains on the network while the new version is created. With a hard fork both the old and new blockchains exist side by side, which means that the software must be updated to work by the new rules.

A marketplace where sellers (miners) and buyers can go to exchange hashrate.

When miners compete to see who can form the longest chain. The BCH-BSV fork caused a war when both parties were redirecting hashrate from Bitcoin to their respective chains.

A Telegram group to discuss hashrate based financial instruments and markets.

The value of hashrate .

The speed at which a computer (ASIC/GPU/CPU) is completing an operation in the cryptocurrency’s code. Therefore, the number of hashes is measured in hashes per second.

How much hashrate a mining pool, colocation, investor group, hash exchange, or hashrate best price execution platform is managing.

When a mining group purchases ASICs and then pays a third-party to host them.

Not mining.

A form of liquid cooling technology used in areas with both high heat and humidity.

At the high-end firms like Fidelity and SBI, but is now used to refer to any large business that enters mining.

The mining-godfather. Creator and Emperor of Bitmain.

As profitability declines, higher-cost miners will try to salvage some value for their rigs by selling them to lower-cost operators. Rarely do ASICs go months offline or get thrown away altogether if they can break a profit at > 1 cent per kWh.

Software that allows you to control your mining operations for things such as monitoring, configuration, and more. It has become a staple of any good facility.

Allows an ASIC to mine on more than one blockchain at the same time. The benefit is that every share the ASIC submits contributes to the total hashrate of both cryptocurrencies, resulting in increased security in both networks.

Either ASICs or people who own the ASICs. No one knows.

A collection of miners that work together to solve blocks. Under a PPS structure mining pools are essentially buyers of hashrate, taking the mining luck risk off the hands of miners in return for a discount on the expected value.

Shipping container style portable warehouses that can be used to host ASICs. Most often deployed in remote areas or for smaller operations.

Minimum order quantity of ASICs from a reseller, sometimes also referenced in hosting services.

The latest equipment from the ASIC manufacturers, with the best efficiency in the market.

A Telegram group with most North American miners.

Blocks that are not accepted into the blockchain network due to a time lag in acceptance, compared to another block submission. Basically, miners aren't rewarded for the work given another miner beat them to the punch.

Using custom firmware to increase the voltage and hence hashrate.

The estimated days of mining it will take to pay back a machine. Miners will cite it on a revenue basis or a gross mining margin basis.

The cost of electricity, measured in $ per kWh.

The standard payout method for mining pools.

Mining multiples blockchains on the same algorithm as a way to increase profitability.

PoW for short. It’s the consensus mechanism used to power Bitcoin and other top crypto networks. Compute power is used to form consensus and security of the network.

Mining that is hosted yourself including all of the infrastructures.

A mining pool that does have the technical ability to mine blocks, so proxies hashrate to another pool that does.

The power supply that is used to power an ASIC. Sometimes it’s external and for certain models it’s built-in.

The period of April to October in Sichuan Province, China. Where the abundance of rain makes hydro very cheap and mining conditions good.

Most often meant as break-even. Miners don't abide by regular Investopedia definitions.

The algorithm used by Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, BSV, and a handful of other coins.

When a crypto's existing code is changed, an old version remains on the network while the new version is created. With a soft fork , only one blockchain will remain valid as users adopt the update.

Gas that would have otherwise been wasted through flaring or venting. Companies like Crusoe, Upstream Data, and GAM target it for Bitcoin mining.

Mining Protocol for mining developed by Braiins. It focuses on making data transfers more efficient, reducing physical infrastructure requirements for mining operations, and increasing security.

Nvidia Miners. The good team.

AMD Miners.

The messaging app used by most miners in the West.

Fees paid by network users. These fees are awarded to miners as a way to incentivize them for processing and securing the transactions.

A passive electrical device that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another, or multiple circuits. Depending on the source, it is sometimes placed outside of a mining farm before the electricity enters the equipment.

The management of a miner's balance sheet including positions, liquidation strategies, hedging strategies, lending & borrowing, and other derivative tools.

Miners that will still mine to a network even if it’s not the most profitable use case for their machine. They are mining for reasons other than profit.

One of the largest chip foundries that supplies ASIC manufacturers.

In Ethereum when two blocks are mined and submitted to the ledger at roughly the same time.