#episode 1 : Blockchain,Mining,Block
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Hello, and thank you for taking the time to visit. In this blog article, I attempted to summarize three blockchain concepts in five phrases so that you could quickly absorb them.
What is Blockchain ?
It's a secure digital ledger (records) of transactions that are copied and spread throughout the complete network of computers.
It's a peer-to-peer database that's shared between multiple computers connected by a peer-to-peer network.
It's a combination of cryptography, networking, incentive mechanisms use to facilitate the process of storing and validating transactions among a network of computers.
It stores new data(i.e digital ledger/record/transaction) by adding a new block that's linked to the previous block using cryptography.
Data stored in the blockchain is immutable, and append-only means data can be added to the system but cannot be deleted. Also, it takes the entire computer to agree before data can be updated which is 99.9% impossible.
What is Blockchain Mining ?
Since Blockchain is a digital record of transactions; Blockchain mining is the process by which a new transaction(records) is added to the Blockchain.
It is the incentive mechanism used to reward miners to help verify that a blockchain transaction is secure verify and valid.
Computer systems in the network compete to solve a complex mathematical puzzle which results to create a hash of a block of transactions that can not be forged
The first computer to solve the complex mathematical puzzle gets a reward of a cryptocurrency and it updates other computers on the network this process is repeated but this time the puzzle becomes harder.
It is important to note that not all cryptocurrencies can be mined, thus only proof of work-based cryptocurrency can be mined. (more on this in a future episode)
What is Block ?
A block is the actual data structure where a transaction is permanently stored on the blockchain.
when a block is created it has 3 basic units called data, nonce, and hash.
The block header hash is formed as a result of the nonce being generated at random when a block is constructed.
a block holds unverified transactions and when the puzzle is solved(mining) the transaction is sealed and immutable
The nonce is set to a 32-bit whole number used to seal a block
I appreciate your taking the time to read this. Please leave a comment and/or feedback.
Also, please share to assist someone in learning the fundamentals of blockchain terminology.
Next, we'll talk about Transactions, Consensus, and Nodes.