Mining refers to the process of creating new bitcoin (BTC) and validating blocks of transactions so they can be added to the Bitcoin blockchain.

The process of forging new blocks by miners and adding them to the blockchain is how BTC transactions are confirmed and processed.

Approximately every ten minutes a new block is added to the blockchain, resulting in both the confirmation of transactions and the generation of new BTC. Currently, 12.5 BTC is generated with each new block and are awarded to the miner that found the block.

Miners are not humans, they're computers. However, humans lend electricity and the infrastructure to the process. Bitcoin miners play a key role in the Bitcoin network.

Every active miner attempts to mine the next block by using their computing power to run mathematical, algorithmic calculations. Once a miner calculates a solution, a new block is generated once all other network participants confirm the result. The miner is then rewarded with the newly-generated BTC. This is called the "block reward".

Today most of the miners are mining professionally in so-called mining farms. These farms host a lot of computers, utilising specially designed chips.