Using vast amounts of computing power, often manifested in private server farms owned by mining collectives that comprise dozens of individuals, miners use highly technical methods to verify the completeness, accuracy, and security of currencies’ blockchains.
Cryptocurrency transactions are recorded on a decentralized ledger. This ledger is called a blockchain. Every time crypto is bought or sold, the transaction is added to the blockchain — a public database of the transactions, which is available to other crypto holders. Anyone can join and participate in the blockchain, but data on individual transactions — and the people involved with them — are secured using cryptography (the basis for the term cryptocurrency). For each transaction added to the blockchain, there’s a digital validation process to verify it and prevent fraud.

It should be noted that crypto prices also started rising more quickly when Donald Trump lost the presidential election, so we should probably have a think about the notion that Trump might actually be Satoshi, and that now with more free time on his hands he is focusing on pumping the market. After all it is highly likely that he is a Japanese-trained quantum physicist (do make sure you get to 2:09 in this for proof of his knowledge of thermodynamics, and to 2:45 for evidence of his reading Japanese):
Like most things with cryptocurrency, regulation comes with hurdles. “There are different agencies that may or may not have jurisdiction to oversee everything,” says Wang. “And it differs state by state.”