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I’d like to ask if someone can help explain this definition found on https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Target
“The SHA-256 hash of a block’s header must be lower than or equal to the current target for the block to be accepted by the network”. I understand that target means difficulty. But I don’t understand what the hash being lower than the target actually means.
I looked on youtube for explanations of target hash but they returned an investopedia definition.
Thank you in advance.
asked Apr 13, 2022 at 23:45
1
There are no magic math to understand for this: simply it was needed some target to let people calculate and mine with some difficulty having success after a certain time. The “lower than” has been chosen, but “greater than” some number or “comprised between “ a couple of number works in the same way. The “lower than” has the useful property that declaring a single parameter (the threshold) you tune all the miner on the target (i.e. 0 < x < threshold) and that as lower is the parameter as higher is the number of guess you should test before to find a good one. You need to define some interval because it is practically impossible to find a single number which when passed trough sha256 yields a certain target number value exactly.
answered May 14, 2022 at 10:17
Bitcoin Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for Bitcoin crypto-currency enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Anybody can ask a question
Anybody can answer
The best answers are voted up and rise to the top
Asked
Viewed
121 times
I’d like to ask if someone can help explain this definition found on https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Target
“The SHA-256 hash of a block’s header must be lower than or equal to the current target for the block to be accepted by the network”. I understand that target means difficulty. But I don’t understand what the hash being lower than the target actually means.
I looked on youtube for explanations of target hash but they returned an investopedia definition.
Thank you in advance.
asked Apr 13, 2022 at 23:45
1
There are no magic math to understand for this: simply it was needed some target to let people calculate and mine with some difficulty having success after a certain time. The “lower than” has been chosen, but “greater than” some number or “comprised between “ a couple of number works in the same way. The “lower than” has the useful property that declaring a single parameter (the threshold) you tune all the miner on the target (i.e. 0 < x < threshold) and that as lower is the parameter as higher is the number of guess you should test before to find a good one. You need to define some interval because it is practically impossible to find a single number which when passed trough sha256 yields a certain target number value exactly.
answered May 14, 2022 at 10:17
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