Mining Roemer

The sha256 hashing function is the foundation to it all. it is a cryptographic one-way conversion algorithm that takes any amount of text and spits it out as a 256 bit string of alphanumeric characters. Roemer uses this hash digest as a signature, similar to your own signature on a document. However, if any part of the text is changed the signature will change. This feature makes validation of data quick, reliable and secure. If the signature changes you know something was changed inside the text.

Mining is the proof of work required to show you correctly linked the hash signature of a previous block of roemer transactions and that you validated the legitimacy of new transactions that you want to place in a new block that will link to the blockchain. Proof of work is the cornerstone to the roemer network.

The reward of "magic money" is the proof of work, it involves hashing the contents of your potential block of transactions with the signature of the previous block and a random number you create called a nonce to try and create a hash value that is equal to or less than a required target number. Doing the work involves doing billions (or trillions) of hashing functions on your block of text, changing the nonce each time to try and get to that target number. If you meet the requirements then your block is eligible for the block reward of Roemer and you are allowed to add the reward in the ledger part of your block (called the coinbase transaction). Only by broadcasting your new block to the network and thereby showing your work does the Roemer network validate your block signature and consent to your new block. Your signature is then included on the end of the blockchain and you claim the block reward.

The Hash At the heart of Roemer mining is [the hash] Rate. The hash is a 64-digit hexadecimal number that is the result of sending the information contained in a block through the SHA256 hashing algorithm. This part of the process takes little time to complete—in fact, you can generate a hash in under a second, pasting some content into an online SHA256 hash generator. This is the encryption method used by Roemer to create a block hash. However, decrypting that hash back to the content you pasted is the difficult part: a 64-digit hash can take centuries to decode with modern hardware.

For example, here's a hash for the previous paragraph run through a hash generator:

a54f83a5db7371eeefa2287a0ede750ac623e49a8ba29f248eb785fe0a678559 If you change one value in that content, like switching one "t" to an "a," the hash changes. Here is the same paragraph, but the first word is misspelled as "Aa" instead of "At":

fbfa33ff980d1492b3a9275a1eb945d89bd6b699ca19c3c470021b8f253654af This is the number called the block hash, which is used in the next block's header as part of the information run through encryption. Each block uses the previous block's hash, which acts to chain them together. This is where the term "blockchain" came from.

Target Hash The target hash, used to determine mining difficulty, is the number miners are trying to solve for. This number is a hash generated by the network.

So, a block hash might look like this (block 786,729):

00000000000000000005a849c28eb24b8a5e04fcecc1ccb3eb2998e4730a456e The target hash looked like this:

0x175c739 This number is a compacted representation of the difficulty target:

0...000005c73900000...0 So, miners needed to generate a number equal to or less than the above number. 1

Mining Roemer mining requires the mining program to generate a hash and append another number to it called the nonce, or "number used once." When a miner begins, it always starts this number at zero. The nonce changes by one every attempt—first, it's 0, then 1, 2, 3, and so on. If the hash and nonce generated by the miner are more than the target hash set by the network, the attempt fails, and the miner tries again. Once the nonce reaches about 4.5 billion, it rolls over like an odometer, using another counter called the extra nonce from another field.

Every miner on the network does this until a hash and nonce combination is created that is less than or equal to the target hash. The first to reach that target has their proposed block added to the chain, receives the reward and fees, and a new block is opened. Once that block fills up with information (about one megabyte), it is closed, encrypted, and mined.

[The Roemer network] is made up of thousands of devices that mine 24 hours per day. Because the mining reward goes to the first to solve the problem, they are all competing. This competition led miners to create pools to gain an advantage over other miners because they needed more computational power to increase their chances of winning.