| Very interesting view into the insides of mining. However, I always find it sad to see how mining is depicted in most media: as a way to "generate" bitcoins. This view is inaccurate for two reasons: 1. The purpose of this whole computation power is to secure the Bitcoin transactions. The mined Bitcoins are "just" an incentive (i.e. a desired side effect). 2. In addition to the mined Bitcoins, the miners receive the transaction costs. In the future, the mined Bitcoins will become a lesser and lesser part of the incentive, gradually replaced by the transaction costs. Luckily, this one seems to be an exception. Although the title is misleading, the process is stated mostly correct (except for not mentioning transaction fees). From the related article: "The lives of bitcoin miners digging for digital gold in Inner Mongolia" https://qz.com/1054805/what-its-like-working-at-a-sprawling-... Today, Ordos (population 2 million) has emerged as a center of bitcoin mining, the process of approving transactions and creating new coins in the digital currency’s system |
Essentially, for an article that is aimed to such a wide audience you need to find an appropriate simplification. Such a simplification will never be completely accurate. Therefore, I consider anything appropriate that is technically not wrong and does not create more confusion. For example, describing mining as a process of generating bitcoins would probably satisfy those requirements (ignoring transactions fees).
I agree that it would be nice to be able to explain what the real purpose of mining is, but I don't see a really good way to do this.