Ask HN: Pseudocode for the Bitcoin Mining Algorithm?

9 points by nighthawk 12y ago ↗ HN

I get the general gist of what problem must be solved for bitcoin mining, namely wanting to find a nonce that pairs with your data to result in a hash with x leading zeros where x is the current difficulty level.

However, I'm having trouble finding the exact algorithm, which uses double SHA-256 encryption, etc.

Can someone give or point me to the full pseudo code for the mining algorithm?

1 comment

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 12.8 ms ] thread

assliquor 12y ago ↗

The source code is here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/miner.cpp

Basically, the ScanHash_CryptoPP(..) function does the actual hashing, and is called by the BitcoinMiner(..) function, which checks if the returned hash has the appropriate number of 0 bits.