Proof of Work (PoW)

Proof of Work (PoW) is a consensus algorithm that was originally implemented in the Bitcoin protocol and then used in other popular blockchains, such as Dogecoin and Litecoin. PoW’s purpose is to prevent malicious actors from taking control of the network by solving computationally intensive problems as a way of verifying the validity of transactions on a blockchain. The nodes that are responsible for validating and adding new blocks by the PoW protocol are usually referred to as miners.

Mining

A block contains a lot of information, and to understand how nodes agree on the block winner in a PoW system, we need to introduce a few more concepts.

Each block has an attribute called nonce. A nonce is an arbitrary number chosen by the miner. It is very important because it contributes to the hash calculation of the block.