Imagine a group of people trying to add a new page to a shared digital notebook (the blockchain). To make sure no one cheats and writes false information, they have to solve a difficult puzzle.

Here's how it works:

New Transactions: When new transactions happen (like sending money), they get bundled together into a "page" (a block).
The Puzzle: This "page" has a special, very hard math problem attached to it. It's so hard that the only way to solve it is by trying lots and lots of random guesses.
The Miners: People with powerful computers (called miners) compete to be the first to find the special number that solves the puzzle for that "page." Think of it like a digital scavenger hunt where they're searching for a specific hidden number.
Proof of Work: When a miner finds the right number, it's like they've shown everyone they did a lot of work (their computers ran many calculations). This special number is the "proof of work."
Adding the Page: The miner who finds the proof of work gets to add their "page" of transactions to the digital notebook. Everyone else checks if the puzzle solution is correct. If it is, they agree this "page" is valid and add it to their own copy of the notebook.
Reward: As a reward for their hard work (and the electricity they used), the winning miner usually gets some new cryptocurrency.

In simple terms: PoW is like a competition where people use their computers to solve hard puzzles to validate transactions and add new blocks to the blockchain. The winner proves they did the work and gets rewarded. This process makes it very difficult for anyone to cheat because they would need an immense amount of computing power to solve the puzzles faster than everyone else.

Learn more with the DBM Academy FREE course An Introduction to your Blockchain Journey or visit https://www.dbm.academy/faq for more blockchain vocabulary.

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