Hello, author here. I built this to explain what Bitcoin miners are actually doing - not “solving complex equations” but repeatedly hashing block candidates in a lottery.
The main interactive component lets you simulate mining w/ adjustable difficulty, and shows how Bitcoin’s issuance schedule is enforced regardless of hash rate growth.
I built it with Astro. The mining simulator component runs client-side. Happy to answer any questions.
Exactly what oakwhiz said. Similarly, if you set all 256 bits of the entropy portion to 1 (i.e. you play minesweeper with my grid) then the resulting valid mnemonic is zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo vote. The last word contains the checksum, which is the hash of the string of 1s.
Thanks - I appreciate the comment. It's a valid concern, and one I thought about while making this. Just to clarify a few things:
- I've explicitly discouraged entering a real mnemonic, in several places. In fact I tried to steer people in a safe direction by putting the random generation component first. The article works best when starting with random entropy.
- All the BIP39 logic is handled client-side using paulmillr/scure-bip39, a minimal audited library.
- It works fully offline - no backend, no database, no server calls.
- There are no cookies or tracking scripts beyond simple pageview stats via Plausible (which is privacy-focused)
That said, I’d genuinely welcome suggestions on how to make it more trustable. Do you think open-sourcing the code for the page/site would help?
Hey, author here. I made this to help technically curious people understand what's really going on when they're handed a Bitcoin seed phrase (i.e. why it's not just a password). You can flip bits of entropy, explore checksum validation, and see how mnemonic phrases are turned into deterministic wallets. Feedback welcome. If anything breaks I’ll fix it fast.
The main interactive component lets you simulate mining w/ adjustable difficulty, and shows how Bitcoin’s issuance schedule is enforced regardless of hash rate growth.
I built it with Astro. The mining simulator component runs client-side. Happy to answer any questions.