The Blockchain Lottery: How Miners Are Rewarded

n their new book Bitcoin for the Befuddled, Drs. Conrad Barski and Chris Wilmer use non-technical language and clear, step-by-step approaches to explain the ins and outs of bitcoin. Here, they provide an overview of the “blockchain lottery” and the process of how miners are rewarded.
As an incentive for users to update the blockchain as frequently as possible, Bitcoin uses a lottery-based reward system. Many people become miners and try to be the first to add a block to the blockchain. Then, based on some probability, a winner is chosen and gets to add a block.
What is the purpose of using a lottery like this to run Bitcoin? Well, let’s imagine Crowley wants to buy a $10,000 car from Clarice. Using traditional currency, two people engaging in this transaction would probably go to a bank and have the money transferred between their bank accounts (or use a cashier’s check, which is analogous to this; see Figure 2-10).

This post was published at Coin Desk on November 23, 2014.