Mining pools allow cryptocurrency enthusiasts to group their resources together to improve mining output.
Mining for physical gold, the world’s oldest currency, is the process of digging it out of the earth.
Mining reveals hidden gold that is not yet available. When successful, an individual digger or mining company owns the gold.
Mining for cryptocurrency works in the same way as finding them digitally using computer programs. The bitcoin protocol specifies that there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins.
There are still bitcoins left to be mined in the blockchain system, but most have already been dug out and are now in the possession of various parties.