Bitcoin is among the oldest and most prevalent cryptocurrencies. This virtual asset has gone through many changes in the past decade it has been around. However, this digital asset has remained steadfast and has remained successful. Despite being volatile, this virtual asset has continued to increase in value. https://bitqt-app.com/ a safe and reliable platform you can use to trade and invest this digital money. However, this virtual dropped in value drastically in 2022 despite hitting an all-time high in early 2021.
People can use two different ways to earn a living with this virtual currency. You can either trade or mine this virtual currency. Mining is the process by which new Bitcoins are generated and left in circulation in the market. Mining this virtual currency is one of the two core components that secure the Bitcoin blockchain. In other words, the mining process helps build the blockchain by discovering new blocks and joining them with the previous ones. The other components are the nodes that keep track of the history of all transactions and verify recent transactions.
Moreover, miners process transactions, meaning they can decide which transactions make it into the blockchain. On the other hand, these virtual asset miners cannot change or interfere with the blockchain. This blockchain technology is a public distributed ledger that records and validates transactions. So, when proposing a change on the blockchain network, one will require the support of more than 51% of the computer nodes.
Some people are always willing to mine this digital currency according to the network's rules, and someone ready to process transactions that a solo miner or pool miner may not want to add to the blockchain. Therefore, miners do not decide which transactions the blockchain records; instead, these miners set the order in which transactions add to the blockchain. Eventually, every node will be able to maintain its identical order.
Can Bitcoin Miners Change Bitcoin's Set Rules?
Two things prevent miners from taking control of the rules governing the Bitcoin network. For one, if miners propose changes to the regulations governing this virtual currency network, they would possibly create a fork in the network. Usually, not everyone on this electronic currency network will agree with the proposed changes. The network that will be maintained by those who do not agree to these proposed changes will temporarily slow down. This temporary slowdown will be because there will be fewer miners supporting the network who can create new blocks.
This difficulty regulation happens once every 2,016 blocks or approximately every fourteen days, at which point an algorithm adjusts the obscurity of adding new blocks to the blockchain. This alteration will make the software account for a decrease in mining power in the network hence making it easier to create new partnerships so that one would still be completed every ten minutes on average. After the change, new miners will get started because of the higher profitability of mining this virtual currency.
Secondly, if miners attempt to take control of the blockchain network or even hold the network hostage, they will demoralize people's faith in this electronic currency. On the other hand, some of these electronic money developers may start working on changes to the software that would make existing mining machines very efficient and reliable at creating new blocks. Both of these changes cause substantial financial risks for any mining business.
The Bottom Line
The only damages that Bitcoin miners can do to this virtual asset are mining empty blocks without transactions and setting a higher transaction fee. However, miners play an essential role in the Bitcoin network by finding blocks and defining the transactions' order.