Proof of Work (PoW)

Proof of Work (PoW) is a consensus mechanism in which participants (miners) compete to solve a computationally hard cryptographic puzzle. The first to find a valid solution earns the right to add the next block to the blockchain and receives the block reward.

Bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto introduced PoW as the mechanism to achieve trustless consensus in a decentralized network.

How it works

1. Miners collect pending transactions from the mempool
2. They repeatedly hash a candidate block with a changing nonce until the result is below the target value (set by network difficulty)
3. This requires enormous computation — but the result is trivially easy for anyone to verify
4. The winner broadcasts the valid block; other nodes verify and accept it
5. The process repeats for the next block

Why it's secure

Rewriting history (e.g., reversing a confirmed transaction) requires redoing all the Proof of Work for every block since the target transaction, faster than the honest network adds new blocks. For Bitcoin, this is computationally and economically infeasible.

PoW coins on Kryptex Pool

• Bitcoin (BTC) — SHA-256
• Litecoin (LTC) — Scrypt
• Kaspa (KAS) — kHeavyHash
• Alephium (ALPH) — Blake3

See also

• Consensus mechanism
• Block reward
• Hashrate
• ASIC