What is nonce?

VietMX Staff asked 3 years ago

nonce is an abbreviation for “number only used once,” which is a number added to a hashed—or encrypted—block in a blockchain that, when rehashed, meets the difficulty level restrictions. The nonce is the number that blockchain miners are solving for. When the solution is found, the blockchain miners are offered cryptocurrency in exchange.

Determining which string to use as the nonce requires a significant amount of trial-and-error, as it is a random string. A miner must guess a nonce, append it to the hash of the current header, rehash the value, and compare this to the target hash.