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Legitimate miners and buyers need to incur substantial production and energy costs, or have to pay the going exchange rates for bitcoins.
Criminal miners pay nearly nothing for the production of new coins, outsourcing the job to hapless victim machines all over the world. Criminal bitcoin thieves don't incur the exchange rate cost for acquisition of bitcoins. They just rely on hacking and malware to siphon bitcoin pockets from law-abiding owners.
What we've got here, then, is a commodity (I hesitate to call it a currency) that has a current value, is free from regulation (for the moment), allows for completely anonymous ownership, and is both highly profitable and almost free to create (if you are willing to violate the law).
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There is no doubt the bitcoin has staying power, but if that is only among criminals (and people who would like to traffic with them, such as the Silk Road drug sellers and customers), or whether it will become a valuable trading commodity for the rest of us is unclear.
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My advice to law enforcement is easy: follow the bitcoin. There's no doubt that more and more criminals will be using bitcoin to generate profit as well as cover their tracks. Whenever you find a stash of bitcoin and possess judicial permission to follow the footprints, do so.
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While bitcoin use is not limited to criminals, there is an undeniably large correlation between bitcoin ownership and criminal action. Notably since bitcoins are becoming increasingly more rewarding to criminal malware seeders and botnet operators while concurrently becoming less profitable for traders that are valid.
Here is the key take-away: bitcoins are becoming the most"national currency" of criminals the world over and are becoming an increasingly poor investment for valid miners.
Cryptocurrency mining is painstaking, expensive, and only sporadically rewarding. Nonetheless, mining includes a magnetic draw for many investors interested in cryptocurrency. This might be because entrepreneurial types see mining as pennies from heaven, such as California gold prospectors in 1848. And if you are technologically inclined, why not do it
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Before you invest the time and equipment, browse this explainer to find out whether mining is really for you. We'll focus mostly on Bitcoin. (Connected: How Bitcoin Works and our helpful infographic, What's Bitcoin)
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By mining, you can earn cryptocurrency without having to put down money to it. Nevertheless, you certainly don't need to be a miner to own crypto.  You can even purchase crypto using fiat currency (USD, EUR, JPY, etc); you can exchange it on an exchange such as Bitstamp using other crypto (example: Using Ethereum or NEO to buy Bitcoin); you even can earn it by playing video games or by publishing blogposts on platforms that pay its consumers in crypto.
In addition to lining the pockets of miners, mining serves a second and critical purpose: it's the only way to release new cryptocurrency into circulation. In other words, miners are essentially"minting" currency. By way of instance, as of the time of writing this piece, there were about 17 million Bitcoin in circulation.
In the absence of miners, Bitcoin would nevertheless exist and be usable, but there might never be any additional Bitcoin. There will come a time when Bitcoin mining ends; per the Bitcoin Protocol, the number of Bitcoin is going to be capped at 21 million. (Related reading:Â What Happens to Bitcoin After All 21 Million are Mined).
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Aside from the short-term Bitcoin payoff, being a miner can give you"voting" power when changes are proposed in the Bitcoin protocol. In other words, an effective miner has influence on the decision-making procedure on these issues as  forking.
Bitcoin are mined in units known as"cubes" At this time of writing, the reward for completing a block is 12.5 Bitcoin. At today's price of about $10,000 each Bitcoin, this means that you'd earn (12.5 x 10,000)$125,000.
When Bitcoin was first mined in 2009, mining one block would earn you 50 BTC. In 2012, this was halved to 25 BTC. In 2016, this was halved into the current degree of 12.5 BTC. In 2020 or so, the reward size will be halved again to 6.25 BTC.
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If you want to keep track of precisely when these halvings will occur, then you can consult the Bitcoin Clock, which upgrades this information in real time.
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Miners are getting paid for their work as auditors. They're doing the job of verifying preceding Bitcoin transactions. This convention is meant to keep Bitcoin users honest, and has been conceived by Bitcoin's founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. By verifying transactions, miners are read what he said helping to prevent the"double-spending issue."