 Miners have always had it rough.. "Frustrated Miners" ​ The Problem with PoW (and what is being done to solve it) ​ Proof of Work (PoW) is one of the most commonly used consensus mechanisms entrusted to secure and validate many of today's most successful cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin being one. Battle-hardened and having weathered the test of time, Bitcoin has demonstrated the undeniable strength and reliability of the PoW consensus model through sheer market saturation, and of course, its persistency. In addition to the cost of powerful computing hardware, miners prove that they are benefiting the network by expending energy in the form of electricity, by solving and hashing away complex math problems on their computers, utilizing any suitable tools that they have at their disposal. The mathematics involved in securing proof of work revolve around unique algorithms, each with their own benefits and vulnerabilities, and can require different software/hardware to mine depending on the coin. Because each block has a unique and entirely random hash, or "puzzle" to solve, the "work" has to be performed for each block individually and the difficulty of the problem can be increased as the speed at which blocks are solved increases. 