Best Twitter threads of the day – August 23rd

The Merge is coming…..

Here are the top dashboards to follow the action ?

— Dune (@DuneAnalytics) August 23, 2022

1/ Ethereum The Merge

By @SixdegreeLab https://t.co/yi9rlMhSLx

— Dune (@DuneAnalytics) August 23, 2022

2/ ETH2 Staking Deposits ?

By @hildobby_ https://t.co/PBPLS4Pec7

— Dune (@DuneAnalytics) August 23, 2022

3/ ETH2 Liquid Staking

By @ratedw3b / @eliasimos https://t.co/mekPpe10WZ

— Dune (@DuneAnalytics) August 23, 2022

4/ Lido Finance Extended

By @LidoFinance https://t.co/F16luDFcZb

— Dune (@DuneAnalytics) August 23, 2022

5/ Ankr Liquid ETH Staking

By @ankr https://t.co/XjY9cIN4Qh

— Dune (@DuneAnalytics) August 23, 2022

6/ ETH2 Staking

By @paulapivat https://t.co/PVVzbvumXB

— Dune (@DuneAnalytics) August 23, 2022

7/ The Merge Tracker

By @brnt https://t.co/0E6KxWTt7R

— Dune (@DuneAnalytics) August 23, 2022

Bitcoin Miners are NOT solving complex math problems.

A ? to make your smol brain bigger.

So WTF are they doing?

(RIP to the S9 boards that have fallen.) pic.twitter.com/SscjP1TsXK

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022

Say it with me friends, "Bitcoin miners HASH."

There you go, you already sound smarter.

But what is hashing?

Hashing is the process by which you take a certain INPUT and process it through a particular ALGORITHM.

In Bitcoin we use SHA-256.

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022

IMO, the most beautiful, technical breakdown of how SHA-256 works is this website: https://t.co/KX80wi20TH

You can put any sort of input into SHA256 and get a hashed output of a fixed length.

Small input changes make HUGE output changes.

Beautiful. pic.twitter.com/L1inShhH2K

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022

OK, enough about algorithms, math is scary.

Bitcoin blocks consist of a HEADER and a BODY of TRANSACTIONS.

To have a VALID block you must hash this information via SHA-256, and output a new hash with a certain number of 0s at the start.

What?

This is miner 'difficulty'. pic.twitter.com/UhxNUl45nh

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022

What keeps block issuance at ~10 minutes is periodic network difficulty adjustment.

This difficulty is determined by how many 0s you need leading your output hash.

The more 0s leading the output hash, the HIGHER the difficulty. Fewer 0s means easier.

Let's make that simpler.

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022

The part of the block the miner changes while hashing is the NONCE.

Changing that input even a little bit radically changes the hashed output of the whole thing.

The job of a miner is to input a guess nonce, hash, then check their work. pic.twitter.com/ncRd52ycUP

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022

Say difficulty is at 5 0s, 00000X
(Currently ~20 0s)

Guess a nonce, hash it w/ SHA-256.

Does your output hash have 5 0s followed by a number?
No?
Guess again.
Does your output have 5 0s followed by a number?
No?
Does your output have 5 0s followed by a number?
No?
Does your…

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022

Miners are rapidly and randomly GUESSING what to make that nonce.

They hash it via SHA-256, until they get an output with enough 0s to satisfy the always changing network difficulty.

We are professional GUESSERS, not professional mathematicians.

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022

You can easily verify this yourself.

Go to https://t.co/nuLYRyOdSx

Click on a recent block number.

Count the number of 0s preceding the hash.

That's how you KNOW this is a valid block.
It satisfies the current difficulty of the network.

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022

The more you think through this, the cooler it gets.

Proof of Work is what connect the digital world to the physical world.

It's what keeps this network incredibly secure.
It's WHY miner efficiency and elec. costs matter.

How EXPENSIVE is it for you to guess a nonce?

— Rob W. (@BikesandBitcoin) August 22, 2022