New bitcoins are costly to produce

In reality, so-called miners compete against each other to link new blocks with older blocks in the blockchain by using computing power to brute-force a number. Another number, called a nonce (number used once), is repeatedly adjusted in a trial-and-error approach until the hash algorithm produces a result that meets the network's difficulty level. 🔢🔍💻🛠️ For a simplified demonstration, let's illustrate this requirement as the result having to start with a specific number of leading zeros.

In this way, miners ensure the integrity of the entire ledger's history, making Bitcoin's blockchain tamper-proof (more on this in the next step). In return, they are rewarded with new bitcoins (and transactions fees) whenever they find the nonce on a new block. This is how new bitcoins are created (commonly: "mined"⛏️), and because the process known as Proof of Work requires computational power, it makes Bitcoins costly to produce.

Let's simulate this, try to guess the nonce of this block to connect it to the previous one! In this simplified game interaction, the hash must start with four zeros to meet the set difficulty level. 💡Hint: Try out all numbers from 19220 to 19230.