# Block Production

Block production is a key concept to understand in order to understand how Stacks operates under the hood. This section will walk you through the three main actions that need to happen in order for the Stacks chain to operate.

* Mining
* Signing
* Stacking

There are two primary parties in Stacks block production: miners and stackers. Miners are responsible for building and proposing new blocks, while stackers are responsible for validating both those blocks and signing sBTC deposits and withdrawals.

Stacking is another action conducted by stackers that is a necessary prerequisite to signing. We'll cover how all of this works together in the next three sections.

For an in-depth overview of the technical aspects of how block production works after the Nakmoto Upgrade, be sure to read through [SIP-021](https://github.com/stacksgov/sips/blob/feat/sip-021-nakamoto/sips/sip-021/sip-021-nakamoto.md).

Here's a diagram outlining the block production process under Nakamoto rules. We'll dig into each part of this in the following docs.

<figure><img src="https://3192840851-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FkmQRCSAss8rGMUFc587c%2Fuploads%2FxjPQBNGCf8kq72oo5Usw%2Fimage.png?alt=media&#x26;token=6f27dbce-8e52-430c-a7a6-adaacbd9573e" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>
