Blockchain technology combines several existing technologies, including asymmetric cryptography, timestamp, and consensus, etc. Asymmetric cryptography, also known as public-key cryptography, is a process that uses a pair of related keys (one public key and one private key) to encrypt and decrypt a message and protect it from unauthorized access or use. A public key can [...]
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Each block of blockchain includes a block header, transactions, transaction counter and blocksize. A block header is like the metadata at the top of a block of transactions. It is used to identify a particular block on an entire blockchain and is hashed repeatedly to create a proof of work for mining rewards. It includes [...]
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Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer, or node-to-node electronic cash system. Every Bitcoin wallet acts as a node. Among them, full nodes store the entire ledger. As of October 2017, the Bitcoin network has around 9300 full nodes running, responsible for broadcasting and validating transactions. When a transaction is initiated, all nodes will relay the information to [...]
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As stated in the Bitcoin whitepaper, nodes always treat the longest blockchain as the truth and continue to work on it. All miners should work on the longest blockchain because it helps to maintain the uniqueness of the blockchain ledger. If the Bitcoin sent to you is not recorded on the longest blockchain, you could [...]
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There are three main categories of blockchain: public chain, permissioned blockchain and the consortium-led Blockchain. Other categories of blockchain may emerge in the future with the rapid development of technology. Public Chains are open and transparent. Any individual or institution can initiate a transaction through a Public Chain from anywhere in the world, which is [...]
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Being borderless: it is possible to send and receive bitcoins anywhere in the world at any time. No bank holidays. No bureaucracy. Lower transaction fees: there is no charges while receiving cryptocurrencies. And most of the time, users are allowed to decide how much to pay when transferring coins. Higher fees can encourage faster confirmation [...]
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As there are no centralized bookkeeping institutions such as banks to ensure the consistency of every transaction in the blockchain network, a consensus mechanism is needed to addresses this issue. Currently, the main consensus mechanisms are Proof of Work and Proof of Stake. Proof of Work consensus mechanism, or PoW, is the original consensus algorithm [...]
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A hashing algorithm is a cryptographic hash function that deals with encryption but not decryption. It is a mathematical algorithm that maps data of arbitrary size to a bit string of a fixed size. Hashing algorithms are used notably in the IT field, such as digital signatures, message authentication codes (MACs), and other forms of [...]
Satoshi Nakamoto did not intentionally limit the block size when he first created Bitcoin. At that time, the block size is around 1 to 2 KB on average. Some people thought that an excessive block size is a waste of computing resources and is susceptible to distributed denial of service attack (DDOS attack). Therefore, Satoshi [...]
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SegWit is a solution to increase the scalability of blockchain and has already been successfully implemented on Litecoin and Bitcoin. It removes the digital signature information within a block, allowing each block to hold more transactions, achieving the goal of scalability. Go Back to learning
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