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Vedant Chainani
Vedant Chainani

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πŸ€” Structure of Blockchain

"Mobile was Internet 2.0. It changed everything. Crypto is Internet 3.0."

Although the idea of blockchain is incredibly intriguing, it is actually very difficult and has very complicated security implementations. Ever wonder πŸ€” what a block includes in its actual form or how blocks are arranged so that none of them may be changed?

This is Web3 Trends, a collection of brief but informative Web3 threads.


✨ What are Blocks

The blockchain block is the data storage component of the distributed ledger of the blockchain. Each block of the blockchain comprises a variety of transactions that contribute to the shared state of the blockchain network.


When explaining the structure of the blockchain, it is sometimes defined as a series of blocks connected together in a way that prevents them from being modified. However, only the block headers are truly linked together in this manner.

✨ Blockchain Header

Depending on the specifics of the blockchain implementation, the header of a block in a blockchain might have a variety of different fields. However, the five listed below are fairly common and each is important to the blockchain's operation.


✨ Timestamp

This specifies when a block was created roughly. Smart contracts that rely on timestamps utilize it to determine how closely the current average rate of block production matches the goal value.


✨ Transaction Root

The transaction root summarizes the contents of the block's body. It contributes to ensuring that the transactions contained within the block benefit from the same integrity safeguards as the block header.


✨ Nonce

A random value chosen by the block creator. It is used to modify the hash of the block header in the Proof of Work consensus algorithm. Only a block with a header value less than a specific threshold is considered valid in Proof of Work.


✨ Previous Block Address/ Hash

The hash is used to connect the i+1th block to the ith block. In a nutshell, it refers to the hash of the previous (parent) block in the chain.


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