Proof of work is how Bitcoin decides who adds the next block. Miners run the same calculation over and over, changing one number each time, until they hit a result below a target. Finding it is hard; checking it takes a split second. The winner adds the block and earns the reward.
The point of all that work is cost. To rewrite history an attacker would have to redo the work of every block they want to change, and outpace the rest of the network while doing it. That makes attacks enormously expensive in hardware and energy. Critics focus on the electricity; supporters answer that the electricity is exactly what makes the ledger hard to fake.
💬 Is proof of work's energy use a feature or a bug, in your view?
Binance Academy covers this in more depth: https://www.binance.com/en/academy/glossary/proof-of-work
Next lesson: Hash rate: the network's heartbeat
Trading crypto from Dubai since 2019.
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