There are currently around 19.5 million Bitcoin in circulation and the cryptocurrency is programmed to have a total supply of 21 million. The final 1.5 million or so are locked away, waiting for users with powerful computers to release them through Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining is like a digital treasure hunt. Armed with powerful computer hardware, miners search for a 64-digit hexadecimal code that validates a block of transactions. This code (also called a hash) is found through a process called hashing. Hashing requires computer hardware to sift through trillions of hashes to find one that matches a block’s ... (full story)