Above we have talked about the Bitcoin blockchain and the importance of the crypto mining process to secure its network, but what about mining in other cryptocurrencies?
These processes vary from one to another, but the main concept remains the same. If these other cryptocurrencies use the same
Proof-of-Work (PoW) as their consensus algorithm, they still have miners and mining processes.
However, if a cryptocurrency uses
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) or
Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS), or other similar consensus, the crypto mining process is usually called a validation process. They are technically different from mining processes because validators don't need to use resource-intensive computers to solve anything.
The validators in a Proof-of-Stake system just need to stake the native cryptocurrency of the blockchain while providing a lightweight computer to process the transaction verification inside that same blockchain. This is because a block proposer is randomly selected from the pool of computers with stakes attached, rather than requiring miners to compete to solve a challenging computational problem.
Because this mechanism is less resource intensive, a PoS blockchain is significantly more
eco-friendly when compared to a PoW blockchain.
Examples of cryptocurrencies utilizing PoS or DPoS or other similar variations are Polkadot, Cardano, Tezos, and also Ethereum, which is currently in the process of fully transitioning from PoW to PoS through a mechanism that is known as "the Merge."