Monero works on the same principle as Bitcoin i.e. Proof of Work.
What is proof of work?
All miners lend their computation power to the Bitcoin network and verify transactions. These verified transactions are clubbed into a block. On every block mined, Bitcoins or Monero is awarded depending on the Blockchain you are working on. For the purpose of earning via mining, you need to understand this that the probability of you mining a block is proportional to your contribution to the whole network hash rate.
Monero is a Proof of Work cryptocurrency that can be miner with computational power from a CPU or GPU. There are currently no ASICs for Monero, which means that anyone with a computer can mine it.
On an average a block is mined in 2 minutes, i.e. 720 blocks are mined in a day
Total network hashrate is approx 77.5 Mh/s
Mining reward is approximately is less than 7.5XMR/block currently
Using the formula n = (Network Hashrate) / (720 * Avg Block Reward):
n = 14444.4 H/s, or 14.44 kH/s to mine 1 XMR per day.
You would need approximately 60 GTX 750 Ti's at 250 H/s each, OR approximately 25RX 470's at 600 H/s each, OR approximately 20 RX 480's at 750 H/s each to mine 1XMR every day.
It seems that every altcoin has its difficulties to scaling up, mostly the solution is POS.But it is hard to control the speed of the inflation in POS, so lastly a new altcoin will come to the market for alleviating the problem. It is just a vicious cycle....
I wonder why Peercoin never got much attention. It does not have the POW issues, has a 1% inflation rate (mainstream economist should love this) and even has a stable and mature USD market at BTC-E.
I consider this coin quite underrated.
This is true. Using Minergate and a few modern CPUs I am able to an XMR every month or so.
Thanks for doing the math. The result is a little depressing (I have 1 1GB ATI 6450 - I guess it'll take me a year to mine 1 XMR :p) but math doesn't lie!