1
: the process or business of working mines
… even in the best of times coal mining was a boom-and-bust industry tied to the health of the wider economy.—Dan Kaufman
—often used before another nouna mining town
mining operations
2
: a process by which the solving of a complex mathematical puzzle verifies a set of cryptocurrency transactions, enters that set into the relevant blockchain, and releases new units of that cryptocurrency into circulation
In the cryptocurrency industry, crypto mining means adding new blocks of data to a blockchain. Cryptocurrency miners have to find a solution to a complex mathematical problem before they can create a new block. They are then rewarded with newly-created coins of cryptocurrency.—Bitstamp.net
The transaction is then added to the blockchain—a secure, perpetually generating ledger of transactions. As more transactions are conducted, however, the mining difficulty increases and requires greater computing power.—David Green and Siddhartha Kazi
see also:
mining
2 of 2present participle of mine entry 4
Cite this Entry
“Mining.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mining. Accessed 14 Oct. 2026.
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