What is a crypto miner? Stealing coins by an app”
A nice simple question.
The answers get very complicated very quickly!
Bitcoin pays people to check the books and pays in Bitcoin.
The process eats a lot of computer time.
So, hijack a multitude of computers to work for you, and keep the money!
Warning!!!
Explanation possibly causes brain pain!!!
Mining is the process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin’s public ledger of past transactions (and a “mining rig” is a colloquial metaphor for a single computer system that performs the necessary computations for “mining”. This ledger of past transactions is called the block chain as it is a chain of blocks.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining
It’s analogous to physically mining for gold, then bringing the gold from those rock melted and refined, to a store to be able to exchange it for cash.