<p>All miners create and discard billions of blocks every second. This work, including the discarded work, acts to benefit the entire Bitcoin community by securing the network. This is the work that is an essential basis of the &quot;Proof of Work&quot; on which Bitcoin is based.</p>
<p>In the long term, miners are rewarded fairly for their share of all work done.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-29T08:09:19.133Z
2022-04-29T08:37:30.147Z
2022-04-29T08:37:30.147Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>Mining is a 'memory-less process', which means that each and every attempt at solving the block is unrelated to how many past attempts you've taken. It is like rolling dice: no matter what you rolled previously, your chance of rolling a 6 is still just 1 in 6.</p>
<p>The network difficulty automatically adjusts according to the recent rate of block production, and as the difficulty increases, so too does the average number of hash attempts needed in order to find a new block. So each previous attempt is not 'wasted', it is simply expected that the <strong>vast</strong> majority of attempts will not be valid. And when considering all of the miners en masse, the <em>sheer number of guesses required</em> to find each new block is what allows the bitcoin network to be considered secure.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-29T13:19:07.677Z
I understand a single miner must make many attempts to solving their block.  But are many miners working at the same time to solve the same (or largely similar) block?  Unless they are sharing their attempt results (which would be meaningless unless the two blocks were identical) then the two miners are expending effort to solve the same or similar block and the efforts of one are discarded when the other succeeds.
Jiminion
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-29T15:08:23.233Z
@user253751 Nice analogy, that's exactly it: no, the unsuccessful rolls/hashes aren't wasted because they *could* have been successful.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-29T15:32:11.823Z
@user253751 Yes, if Alice and Bob both rolled a 3 then one of them duplicated work unnecessarily.
Andy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-29T18:33:15.013Z
@Jiminion: Miners never repeat work done by other miners because they all work on unique block templates: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/36194/5406
Murch
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-30T02:48:37.110Z
If there are two blocks created nearly simultaneously, and the blockchain forks, eventually only one will be considered valid, and one of the blocks has to be discarded.  And if the bad side of the fork grows to some extent before failing, then all of the blocks added to the failed chain also need to be discarded.  That seems like lost effort to me.
Jiminion
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-30T15:17:46.930Z
@Jiminion That scenario is actually lost effort indeed, and it is the primary reason why the inter block time is that long: giving (honest) miners time to learn about each others blocks (see https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/113506/208). But that's a different case than what you are asking about, I think? Hash attempts that just never beat the target value are not wasted - they're just a byproduct of the process of creating hashes that do beat the target, at a fixed (expected) ratio.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-30T16:12:45.563Z
@PieterWuille Yes, it was a different case.  I edited the question to present a better (simplistic) example.  My thinking now is that the tries are not wasted from the perspective of the miners, but they can be wasted from the perspective of the effort needed to secure the blockchain.  Effort is wasted to preserve the capitalist incentive to pursue bitcoins, so miners do not work in concert. [I am not anti-capitalist, but it is unclear how this effort is directly beneficial to blockchain security.]
Jiminion
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-30T17:42:47.027Z
@Jiminion There is a fixed ratio between winning hash and losing hash attempts. You cannot create one without the other. You can see the winning ones just as an approximate way to measure how many hashes are actually performed. But it is the hashes that secure the network - more hashes (even losing ones) performed means attackers also need to perform more.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-29T09:49:40.347Z
2022-04-29T09:49:40.347Z
chytrik
<p>If many parties are mining to try to establish a block, and one succeeds, does that mean the efforts of the other miners (whose blocks have at least some common transactions) are lost; the time and energy spent to create their blocks must be discarded?</p>
<p>[I have read some of the links, and some of the links of the links, and am still a bit confused.]</p>
<p>Here is an example using a simplified coin.  Imagine there are only 1000 possible choices to complete the block.  And only one miner, Alice.  Since she has to guess which one of the 1000 choices will complete the block, she will make, on average, 500 tries to complete the block. It could be more or less, but 500 would be the average.</p>
<p>Now add another miner, Bill. Alice and Bill start mining at the same time and at the same rate.  Since there are now two miners, and only one needs to succeed to complete the block, together, they need to each try only about 293 times before, on average, the block will be complete.  That is quite a bit faster, because only 293 tries-times have elapsed, but the total number of tries to complete the block is larger, 586 instead of 500.  The 86 tries seem wasted because a single miner would only need, on average, 500 tries.</p>
<p>UPDATE:</p>
<p>I now realize that each miner (or at least each mining group) is working on their own, unique block.  The block is unique if only because of the miner designation (who gets the bitcoin reward) that is part of the block.  So, in general, no two miners, outside of a mining group, are ever working on the same block.</p>

<transactions><mining-theory>
Is it common for mining effort to be lost?
Jiminion
# Is it common for mining effort to be lost?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-04-29)

If many parties are mining to try to establish a block, and one succeeds, does that mean the efforts of the other miners (whose blocks have at least some common transactions) are lost; the time and energy spent to create their blocks must be discarded?

[I have read some of the links, and some of the links of the links, and am still a bit confused.]

Here is an example using a simplified coin. Imagine there are only 1000 possible choices to complete the block. And only one miner, Alice. Since she has to guess which one of the 1000 choices will complete the block, she will make, on average, 500 tries to complete the block. It could be more or less, but 500 would be the average.

Now add another miner, Bill. Alice and Bill start mining at the same time and at the same rate. Since there are now two miners, and only one needs to succeed to complete the block, together, they need to each try only about 293 times before, on average, the block will be complete. That is quite a bit faster, because only 293 tries-times have elapsed, but the total number of tries to complete the block is larger, 586 instead of 500. The 86 tries seem wasted because a single miner would only need, on average, 500 tries.

UPDATE:

I now realize that each miner (or at least each mining group) is working on their own, unique block. The block is unique if only because of the miner designation (who gets the bitcoin reward) that is part of the block. So, in general, no two miners, outside of a mining group, are ever working on the same block.

**Tags:** transactions, mining-theory


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2022-04-29. Score: 5 | Accepted answer

Mining is a 'memory-less process', which means that each and every attempt at solving the block is unrelated to how many past attempts you've taken. It is like rolling dice: no matter what you rolled previously, your chance of rolling a 6 is still just 1 in 6.

The network difficulty automatically adjusts according to the recent rate of block production, and as the difficulty increases, so too does the average number of hash attempts needed in order to find a new block. So each previous attempt is not 'wasted', it is simply expected that the **vast** majority of attempts will not be valid. And when considering all of the miners en masse, the *sheer number of guesses required* to find each new block is what allows the bitcoin network to be considered secure.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: I understand a single miner must make many attempts to solving their block.  But are many miners working at the same time to solve the same (or largely similar) block?  Unless they are sharing their attempt results (which would be meaningless unless the two blocks were identical) then the two miners are expending effort to solve the same or similar block and the efforts of one are discarded when the other succeeds.  
> **username_3**: @user253751 Nice analogy, that's exactly it: no, the unsuccessful rolls/hashes aren't wasted because they *could* have been successful.  
> **username_4**: @user253751 Yes, if Alice and Bob both rolled a 3 then one of them duplicated work unnecessarily.  
> **username_5**: @username_0: Miners never repeat work done by other miners because they all work on unique block templates: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/36194/5406  
> **username_0**: If there are two blocks created nearly simultaneously, and the blockchain forks, eventually only one will be considered valid, and one of the blocks has to be discarded.  And if the bad side of the fork grows to some extent before failing, then all of the blocks added to the failed chain also need to be discarded.  That seems like lost effort to me.  
> **username_3**: @username_0 That scenario is actually lost effort indeed, and it is the primary reason why the inter block time is that long: giving (honest) miners time to learn about each others blocks (see https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/113506/208). But that's a different case than what you are asking about, I think? Hash attempts that just never beat the target value are not wasted - they're just a byproduct of the process of creating hashes that do beat the target, at a fixed (expected) ratio.  
> **username_0**: @username_3 Yes, it was a different case.  I edited the question to present a better (simplistic) example.  My thinking now is that the tries are not wasted from the perspective of the miners, but they can be wasted from the perspective of the effort needed to secure the blockchain.  Effort is wasted to preserve the capitalist incentive to pursue bitcoins, so miners do not work in concert. [I am not anti-capitalist, but it is unclear how this effort is directly beneficial to blockchain security.]  
> **username_3**: @username_0 There is a fixed ratio between winning hash and losing hash attempts. You cannot create one without the other. You can see the winning ones just as an approximate way to measure how many hashes are actually performed. But it is the hashes that secure the network - more hashes (even losing ones) performed means attackers also need to perform more.  

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### Answer by username_1 on 2022-04-29. Score: 3

All miners create and discard billions of blocks every second. This work, including the discarded work, acts to benefit the entire Bitcoin community by securing the network. This is the work that is an essential basis of the "Proof of Work" on which Bitcoin is based.

In the long term, miners are rewarded fairly for their share of all work done.


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