Crypto Mining Glossary

OPEX (Operational Expenditure) refers to the recurring costs associated with running a Bitcoin mining operation on a day-to-day basis. These expenses are necessary for the ongoing operation of the mining rigs and include costs such as electricity, hardware maintenance, cooling systems, pool fees, and other operational expenses. Unlike CAPEX (Capital Expenditure), which represents one-time investments in mining equipment and infrastructure.

An orphan block is a block that is valid but is not accepted into the main blockchain because another block at the same height has already been accepted. Orphan blocks occur when two miners find a block at roughly the same time, but only one can be added to the blockchain.

Overclocking refers to the practice of increasing the operating speed of a mining device, such as an ASIC miner or GPU, beyond its default specifications. In Bitcoin mining, overclocking is used to boost the hashrate (mining performance) by increasing the clock speed of the hardware.