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Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day

This article is now available in Japanese: 紙と鉛筆でビットコインをマイニング：1日に0.67ハッシュ and Russian: Майним Bitcoin с помощью бумаги и ручки . I decided...

The hashing task itself doesn't accomplish anything useful in itself, but because finding a successful block is so difficult, it ensures that no individual has the resources to take over the Bitcoin system. Likewise, the choose operation appears below G, and the shifts and Σ1 above E. In the lower right, a bunch of terms are added together, corresponding to the first three red sum boxes. In contrast, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and similar altcoins use the scrypt hash algorithm, which is intentionally designed to be difficult to implement in hardware.

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