Bitcoin Mining Glossary
Bitcoin
The decentralised digital currency and the network behind it. Capitalised “Bitcoin” means the network; lowercase “bitcoin” is the unit of money.
BTC
The ticker symbol for one bitcoin, the standard unit of the currency.
Satoshi
The smallest unit of bitcoin. One bitcoin equals 100,000,000 satoshis.
Wallet
An app or device that holds the private keys you use to send and receive bitcoin.
Private key
The secret code that proves ownership and lets you spend bitcoin. Whoever holds it controls the coins.
Address
A string you share to receive bitcoin, similar to an account number for payments.
Blockchain
The public, chronological ledger of every Bitcoin transaction, shared across the whole network.
Block
A batch of recent transactions added to the blockchain roughly every 10 minutes.
Confirmation
A transaction being included in a block. More confirmations make it harder to reverse.
Transaction fee
A small amount of bitcoin paid to miners to prioritise your transaction in a block.
Mining
Using computer hardware to validate transactions and secure the network, earning newly issued bitcoin in return.
Learn more →ASIC miner
Specialised hardware built only for Bitcoin mining. 21energy's heaters use hydro-cooled ASICs that turn that work into heat.
Learn more →Hash rate
How much computing power is securing the network or running your miner, measured in hashes per second.
Proof of Work
The mechanism where miners spend real computing energy to add blocks, making the network expensive to attack.
Block reward
The newly created bitcoin, plus fees, a miner receives for adding a block.
Halving
Roughly every four years (every 210,000 blocks), the block reward is cut in half, slowing new bitcoin supply.
Learn more →Bitcoin heater
A heater that doubles as a Bitcoin miner: nearly all the electricity becomes heat for your home, while the computing earns you Bitcoin.
Learn more →Bitcoin Cashback
Part of your heating bill returned to you as bitcoin, paid out daily, when you run a 21energy heater.
Learn more →Waste-heat reuse
Capturing the heat a miner naturally produces and using it to warm your space instead of letting it go to waste.
Hydro cooling
Cooling a miner with water instead of fans, so the heat can be moved into your heating system quietly and efficiently.
PV surplus
Solar power your panels produce but don't use or export; it can run a miner instead of being wasted.
Learn more →Feed-in tariff
The rate your utility pays for solar power you export to the grid; mining your surplus can earn more than feeding it in.
Learn more →Dynamic electricity tariff
Electricity priced by the hour; smart heaters mine and heat most when power is cheapest.
Learn more →Resistive heating
Electric heating where essentially all the power becomes warmth: 1 kW of electricity gives about 1 kW of heat. A Bitcoin heater matches this and earns mining income on top.
Coefficient of performance (COP)
How much heat a system delivers per unit of electricity. Resistive and Bitcoin heaters sit near 1, but the Cashback effectively lowers the net heating cost.
Solar self-consumption
Using the solar power you generate yourself instead of exporting it cheaply. A Bitcoin heater is an easy way to soak up more of your own production.
Learn more →Energy efficiency (J/TH)
A miner's efficiency, measured in joules of electricity per terahash of work. The lower the number, the more computing you get per unit of power.
Mining pool
A group of miners that combine their hashrate to earn small, steady payouts instead of rare large ones. This is what makes daily Cashback possible.
Flexible load
Equipment that can ramp up or down on demand to match the grid. Miners are an ideal flexible load and can even be paid to help balance it.
Curtailment
Renewable power that gets switched off because the grid can't absorb it. Mining can soak up this otherwise wasted energy.
Heat pump
A heating system that moves heat rather than creating it, delivering more than 1 kW of warmth per kW of power. A Bitcoin heater can complement one by turning electric heating into income.
Learn more →Noise level
How loud a heater runs, measured in decibels (dB). Hydro-cooled Bitcoin heaters stay quiet enough for living spaces, unlike fan-cooled miners.
Payback period
How long it takes for Cashback earnings and heating savings to cover the purchase price of the heater.
Learn more →Bitcoin central heating
A whole-home heating system powered by Bitcoin miners. Instead of warming a single room, the mining heat feeds your existing central heating and warms the whole house while earning Bitcoin.
Learn more →
