(Remember this for the BitCoin drama coming up in the next post.) Consensus means that no one party can take over and control the BitCoin network, because the rest of the parties on the network won’t cooperate, and the cooperation of all parties is required for the BitCoin network to operate. This is called Consensus, and it is one of the most powerful aspects of BitCoin. (The difficulty level of the block’s Hash is one such rule.) The Miners and Nodes (and other parties, such as BitCoin Exchanges and BitCoin users, who use Wallet applications to connect to the network) agree on the set of rules that constitutes a valid Blockchain, and will only share transactions and blocks that meet this criteria. (Miners compute the new blocks in the Blockchain, and Nodes transmit the new blocks to all parties on the network.) No one “owns” or “controls” BitCoin – everyone who participates in the network keeps their own copy of the Blockchain. The BitCoin network consists of a series of Nodes and Miners. The ability to compute the Hash successfully requires a large amount of computing resources, and this is known as the Proof of Work. the more computing power the network can bring to bear) the more difficult it is to construct a block on the BitCoin Blockchain. In fact this difficulty is adjusted based on the size of the BitCoin network, so the larger the network (i.e. BitCoin transactions are secured wth strong digital signatures, and the blocks within BitCoin’s blockchain are secured by placing constraints around the block signature (or Hash) that makes it extremely difficult to calculate. Each block in BitCoin’s Blockchain contains a set of transactions that represent a transfer of Bitcoin from one party to another. The signature of each block includes the signature of the previous block, hence the blocks are linked together in a chain, and one block can’t be altered without having to update all subsequent blocks.īitCoin is a digital currency, that uses a Blockchain as the underlying structure to record transactions. A Blockchain consists of a series of blocks that are each “signed” with a secure stamp (for the technically minded this is a Hash, a which can mathematically demonstrate that the contents of the block have not been altered). The terms BitCoin and Blockchain are often used synonymously these days, but:Ī Blockchain is a secure, unalterable, shared ledger. Today I’ll go over some Blockchain 101 (actually BitCoin 101) to set some background for the drama of the next post. There’s a drama unfolding in the Bitcoin community right now! It’s interesting and instructive, and I’ll blog about it in my next post.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |