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Since we're just trying to produce a specific hash output, couldn't the nonce also include letters or otherwise random bits?
Does the nonce have to be a number?
Answers
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The nonce is an arbitrary string of bits with no particular meaning. Typically they are converted into an unsigned integer for convenience. Every possible set of nonce bits has a corresponding integer in this representation.
To get letter in a nonce, you'd have to present the bits in the nonce in some encoding scheme that had some way to encode letters. There is no such scheme in common use.
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Technically, the nonce is just 4 bytes that are ignored. There's no reason why the block couldn't contain "Nick" in ASCII, or somebody's phone number.
That being said:
- the fastest way to mine is to start with a nonce of all 0's, then increment it.
- an easier way to embed data into the blockchain is to use fields in the coinbase.
So are there any blocks with letters in the nonce? I understand your 2 points, would it increase the probability of solving a block if your miner actually incremented 0-9 then a-z and A-Z, etc? – pinhead – 2013-04-23T17:24:10.720
@pinhead So are there any blocks with letters in the nonce? Probably. One in every thousand blocks has a nonce of all letters. There are 200 thousand.
it needs to be increasing, so using a number or more specifically a date makes this easier – Loourr – 2013-04-23T18:07:47.077