In this lecture, we will talk about mining and staking.
As we said earlier, there are 2 consensus mechanisms in the blockchain: Proof of Work and Proof of Stake.
Blockchain consensus is a procedure in which network participants reach agreement on the current state of data in the network. Through this, consensus algorithms establish reliability and trust in the network itself.
Let’s take a closer look at mining and staking as an implementation of mechanisms.
Proof of Work, PoW is the first distributed consensus mechanism.
PoW works on the following principle: it is expensive to add a tranche of new transactions to the blockchain, but it is very easy to check if the transactions are valid, thanks to the transparency of the ledger.
Miners collectively validate the entire blockchain, and transactions are not considered fully “confirmed” until a few new blocks are added to them.

Self mining. Main advantages:
«sale of equipment — a miner can always sell his own equipment and minimize losses;
complete minimization of the possibility of speculation — the user will see the power of the equipment used and the real income from it;
the miner will decide on his own what kind of cryptocurrency to hunt and mine;
it is possible to create a fully automatic way to earn bitcoin;
realization of passive income with the help of installed equipment;
the opportunity to successfully invest free investments in the construction of a Bitcoin farm.
cloud mining. Miners are united in a pool that buys and maintains equipment for cryptocurrency mining with their funds.
The advantages of this method are that there is no need to bother with the acquisition and subsequent maintenance of ASICs. That is, it is necessary to invest a certain amount of funds in cloud mining, after which you can make a profit every day, which is divided among all participants.
What are pools?
Pools are servers that distribute the calculation task among all miners. Participants unite in pools and invest in equipment for joint profit. As soon as one of them hits the target, a block is created and the participants are rewarded.»
Mining is not always efficient. There are many factors to take into account when deciding to do this kind of work.
All farm maintenance costs are borne by the miner. In the process of work, it will have to be serviced. It is necessary to regularly monitor the performance of equipment, the Internet, the supply of electricity and the absence of any type of failure in the stable functioning of the system.
Proof of Stake is a popular consensus method based on a process known as «staking».
In a proof-of-stake (PoS) system, miners must deposit their «stake» of digital currency in order to stand a chance of being randomly selected as a validator.
In other words, each network node is associated with a certain address, and the more coins that address belongs to, the more likely they are to mine (or “pump” in this case) the next block.
Unlike PoW, where miners are incentivized by block rewards (newly created coins), those who contribute to the PoS system simply receive a transaction fee.
Before you can earn Proof of Stake, you need to get enough coins of a certain cryptocurrency. Only those who have a permanent balance on their wallet and are regularly online can profit from this technology.
Usually, blockchain networks based on the PoS algorithm randomly select validators to validate new blocks, depending on the amount of coins they have staked.
Validators are people (public volunteers) on the network who voluntarily run a computer to maintain a blockchain ledger. These computers, also known as nodes, check the integrity of the network by constantly calculating the connection between the genesis block (the first block) and the present one.
For example, to become an Ethereum validator, you need to deposit at least 32 ETH on a deposit contract. Any holder can delegate a smaller amount of coins to the validator
You can earn on staking cryptocurrencies alone or in a pool, when several owners of cryptocurrencies pool their capital to get more rewards, and then share the income.
Profitability depends on two main parameters: the volume of rewards, that is, the rate of production of new coins through staking, as well as the price of the cryptocurrency.