To put it simply, cryptocurrency mining is a process of solving complex mathematical problems. Miners are essentially the cornerstone of many cryptocurrency networks as they spend their time and computing power to solve those math problems, providing a so-called “proof-of-work” for the network, which verifies Ether (ETH) transactions. Besides that, miners are responsible for creating new Ether tokens through this process, as they receive rewards in Ether for successfully completing a PoW task.
PoW relies on fundamental properties of the hash function, an “encrypted” piece of data that is procedurally derived from some arbitrary input. The difference between hashes and standard encryption is that the process only goes one way. The only meaningful way to find what input was used to generate a given hash is to try to hash all possible input combinations and see which one fits. This is further complicated by the fact that tiny alterations in initial data will produce completely different results.
