What is proof-of-work?

Proof-of-work was first proposed in 1993 to fight against spam emails on a network and denial-of-service attacks. The PoW concept was then popularized by Satoshi Nakamoto to validate new blocks in the Bitcoin network in 2008.

PoW is based on network users’ capacity to prove that a computational task is accomplished. To answer a mathematical equation, some computing power known as a node is employed, and once the equation is solved, a new block on the chain is validated. A node is any physical device like a personal computer that can receive, send, or forward data within a network of other tools.

The solver that answers a mathematics puzzle the fastest, will create a cryptographic link between the current and previous blocks and earn some freshly minted crypto coin. This process is known as mining, and the solvers are known as miners. It is through their combined efforts that a blockchain is kept secure for all parties involved. Moreover, the computational task of solving this puzzle itself is called proof-of-work.