Mining involves solving a hard mathematical problem and miners typically use large numbers of computers to speed up the number-crunching involved.

BBC: Bitcoin miners generating high energy bills

Mining involves solving a hard mathematical problem and miners typically use large numbers of computers to speed up the number crunching involved.

BBC: Bitcoin miners hit back at cyber-thieves

Freeport McMoran Copper now faces a new problem related to its Indonesian mining operations.

FORBES: Indonesian Miners Strike Another Blow For Freeport At Grasberg

The reality is that working with any mining company is going to be a problem.

FORBES: Mining and International Development: Partner or Pariah?

The problem is there are not too many established mining firms to choose from.

FORBES: So You Want To Invest In Gold?

Workers themselves are another problem: with labour in short supply, oil and mining firms are poaching staff from one another.

ECONOMIST: Mining

Instead users are rewarded in a process called "mining", in which coins are issued to a user when they solve a complicated mathematical problem using their computer.

BBC: Skype trojan forces Bitcoin mining, security firm warns

Instead they are created in a process called "mining", in which coins are issued to a user when they solve a complicated mathematical problem using their computer.

BBC: Bitcoins

In a noted example, Don Tapscott, in his book Wikinomics, described how one Canadian gold mining company facing a looming shutdown desperately turned to the general public to help solve a critical business problem.

FORBES: The Rise of Crime-Sourcing

Asked whether new laws were needed to enforce mining codes, Golborne said the laws were not to blame for the men's predicament: "The problem was that the owners did not do what they were told to, " he said.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS