A miner needs to commit BTC in order to mine a block. Does this mean that the BTC needs to be deposited to the address to mine every single block? Do miners get back the BTC if they aren’t elected to mine?
What exactly happens at the beginning of the cycle in stacking?(the first 100 blocks). I couldn’t grasp the concept of an anchor block from the documentation.
“”" The reward set – the reward set is the set of Bitcoin addresses which will receive funds in the reward cycle. This set is determined using Stacks chain state from the anchor block. “”" Isn’t the reward set the list of bitcoin wallet addresses of people who are stacking currently? What does this mean “This set is determined using Stacks chain state from the anchor block.”?
This is the set of Bitcoin addresses registered through the PoX contract as of the anchor block.
Each block encodes the state of the blockchain with all prior transactions applied. Block N represents the state of the system after applying all transactions in blocks 0 through N - 1. When the miners elect an anchor block in the prepare phase, they are in effect choosing a particular point in the history of the blockchain – and thus the history of the PoX contract’s state – from which the set of reward addresses will be calculated. So, if the anchor block is selected at height N, then reward addresses registered in blocks N - 1 and earlier may be present in the reward set, but no reward addresses are considered from blocks N+1 or later.