Bitcoin Mining Glossary
A plain-English glossary of common Bitcoin mining terms. Use this as a reference while you explore the Mining 101 lessons and tools.
A
- ASIC
- Application-Specific Integrated Circuit. A specialized computer chip built to do one thing extremely well β in this case, compute Bitcoin hashes.
- ASIC Miner
- A complete mining machine built around one or more ASIC chips, plus cooling, power supply, and network control.
B
- Block
- A group of Bitcoin transactions bundled together and added to the blockchain by a miner who finds a valid hash.
- Block Reward
- The amount of BTC given to the miner who successfully mines a block, plus transaction fees.
- Breaker
- An electrical safety device that automatically stops current flow when a circuit is overloaded or shorted.
C
- Cold Air Intake
- The source of cooler air brought into a miner to keep it from overheating.
- Continuous Load
- An electrical load that runs for three hours or more, such as an ASIC miner operating 24/7.
D
- Difficulty
- A network setting that controls how hard it is to find a valid block hash, adjusted approximately every 2016 blocks.
- Ducting
- Flexible or rigid tubes used to direct hot or cold air to or from miners.
H
- Hash
- The output of a cryptographic function. In Bitcoin mining, miners repeatedly compute hashes to try to find one below the current target.
- Hashrate
- The number of hashes a miner or the whole network can compute per second (e.g., TH/s, EH/s).
J
- J/TH (Joules per Terahash)
- A measure of efficiency. How much energy (in joules) is required to perform one trillion hashes. Lower is better.
P
- PDU (Power Distribution Unit)
- A device that distributes electrical power to multiple miners, often with metering and surge protection.
- Pool
- A group of miners that combine their hashrate and share block rewards proportionally.
- PPS / FPPS / PPLNS
- Different pool payout methods. PPS and FPPS offer predictable earnings per share; PPLNS is more variable and depends on luck and time window.
S
- Share
- A piece of work submitted by a miner to a pool to prove it is contributing hashrate.
- Solo Mining
- Mining without a pool; you only receive rewards if you personally find a block.
W
- Watt (W)
- A unit of power. In mining, it measures how much electrical power your miner uses at a moment in time.
- Watt-hour (Wh) / Kilowatt-hour (kWh)
- Units of energy use over time. Your electricity bill is usually measured in kWh.