A block is one record covering a whole group of transfers, which the network adds to the shared history of operations. Whether a given network has its blocks added by miners or by validators depends on its rules. That set of rules is called a consensus mechanism, and the article what is consensus explains it in detail.
Miners work in networks such as Bitcoin. There the right to add a block has to be earned with a computer's work, a method called Proof of Work. Whoever solves a hard puzzle first gets to add the block.
Validators work in Ethereum, for example. Here a deposit is what earns a turn at adding blocks, and the method is called Proof of Stake. A validator locks part of its coins of that network as a promise to act honestly, and from time to time the network's rules give it a turn to assemble a new block.
Put very simply, miners are like prospectors who spend effort and equipment in the hope of a find. Validators are more like co-owners who have put their own money into a shared business and would lose it by cheating, so honesty pays for them.
The work itself is identical for both, and it has four parts:
No. The amount, the recipient's address and everything else in a transfer stay exactly as you signed them, and nobody can forge the signature without your key. Miners and validators only decide the order in which transfers go into a block, so they can delay yours. A transfer with a higher fee is usually picked up sooner. After a transfer lands in a block, each following block makes the record more secure, which is why large payments wait for several confirmations, that is, several new blocks after their own. The article what is a blockchain explains how the chain of blocks works.
If more than half of the miners collude, they can hold up transfers for a while and try to spend the same coins twice. This is called a 51% attack. They still cannot steal coins from other people's addresses, because that would take other people's signatures1. In large networks such an attack is very expensive and would crash the price of the attackers' own coins. In deposit-based networks, the attackers would also be putting their deposits at risk2.
A useful comparison sets miners and validators beside two other players people often confuse them with. One is an ordinary network node, a computer that keeps a copy of the blockchain and checks it. The other is a bank, which keeps the records of your money in everyday life.
| Miner | Validator | Node | Bank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Checks transfers? | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Adds new records? | yes | yes | no | yes |
| Needs powerful hardware and lots of electricity? | yes | no | no | no |
| Needs a deposit of its own coins? | no | yes | no | no |
| Gets a reward for the work? | yes | varies1 | no | yes |
| Can reverse your transfer? | no | no | no | varies2 |
| Needs anyone's permission to start? | no | no3 | no | yes |
A miner works on a hard computational puzzle. No clever idea or formula solves it; the only way is to try one guess after another, and that takes powerful computers and a lot of electricity. Whoever finds the answer first adds the next block. The more computing power a miner has, the better its chance of being first, which is why large miners fill whole halls with equipment and networks built this way consume a lot of energy.
For a new block the miner receives two things: new coins, which the network issues in that very block, and the fees for all the transfers the miner put into it1. How a network issues new coins and why bitcoin produces fewer of them over time is explained in the article what is issuance.
In Bitcoin a new block appears on average once every 10 minutes. When more miners join, the network's rules automatically make the puzzle harder, so the pace holds3. A lone miner has almost no chance of finding the answer first, so miners team up in pools. A pool combines the computing power of many participants and splits the reward among them according to what each contributed.
Anyone who has put up a deposit, meaning locked their coins in that same network, becomes a validator. Only those coins count; property and money from outside are not accepted as a deposit. The deposit alone does not entitle a validator to assemble every block. The network's rules decide who assembles the next one, in turn and largely at random, and validators with bigger deposits are picked more often on average. The chosen validator puts new transfers together in a block and offers it to the others, who check that every transfer in it is genuine.
Ethereum shows how this works in practice. To run your own validator you need to deposit at least 32 ETH, the coins of the Ethereum network. Every 12 seconds the network's rules pick one validator at random to propose a block, and the others check it and vote for it4. In return the validator receives new coins and part of the transfer fees. The Solana network also runs on validators, though with rules of its own.
In Ethereum a dishonest validator forfeits part of its deposit and is removed from the work. This penalty is called slashing5. Trying to approve two different versions of the same block at once is one example of dishonesty. Not every deposit-based network has this penalty. Even where it is absent, a validator that does a poor job misses out on rewards. For an ordinary holder that is the safeguard: cheating the network does not pay.
Staking is when you add your coins to a validator's deposit and receive part of its reward in return. You do not become a validator yourself; you entrust your coins to someone else's validator through an exchange or a pool. That way you can take part without 32 ETH and without a computer of your own that has to stay connected to the network all the time.
From the outside it looks like a bank deposit: the coins sit there and the reward accrues. It differs from a deposit in four ways:
When you stake through an exchange or another service, that service holds the coins, and its risks become yours. The article hot and cold wallet explains how this differs from keeping coins in your own wallet.
Who supports a network determines where its new coins come from, how hard it is to break into and how much electricity it uses.
Networks with miners have one more link to the price. A miner has to cover the cost of electricity and equipment. When the block reward stops covering those costs, large miners may start selling their coins, which puts pressure on the price, although there is no direct formula for it.
In principle almost anyone can become a miner or a validator by meeting the requirements. Mining takes equipment and electricity, and a validator needs a deposit plus a computer that stays connected to the network at all times. Mining major coins on a home computer almost never pays off today.
For figures that change, such as how many validators a network has or what the block reward is right now, look at a block explorer, a website that shows every block and every transfer.
Bitcoin keeps its 10-minute pace like this: the network's rules adjust the puzzle's difficulty so that 2,016 blocks appear in roughly two weeks3.
In Ethereum the validator gets only the tip from the fee, the extra amount the sender added on top. The main part of the fee is burned, which means it disappears for good7. The article what is gas explains how the fee itself is built.
Solana has no slashing as of 19.10.2026: a proposal to introduce the penalty was closed in January 2026 without being adopted8.
