Cryptocurrency mining is painstaking, costly and only sporadically rewarding. Nonetheless, mining has a magnetic appeal for many investors interested in cryptocurrency because of the fact that miners are rewarded for their work with crypto tokens. And if you are technologically inclined, why not do it? However, before you invest the time and equipment, read this explainer to see whether mining is really for you. We will focus primarily on Bitcoin throughout, we’ll use «Bitcoin» when referring to the network or the cryptocurrency as a concept, and «bitcoin» when we’re referring to a quantity of individual tokens. The primary draw for many Bitcoin miners is the prospect of being rewarded with valuable bitcoin tokens. That said, you certainly don’t have to be a miner to own cryptocurrency tokens. An example of the latter is Steemitwhich is kind of like Medium except that users can reward bloggers by paying them in a proprietary cryptocurrency called ST...