Now let's have a peek into the blockchain and see how things are running.
As you can see in the diagram, we are trying to show you a bird's eye view of the blockchain.
Whenever a blockchain is getting started, you have a block zero, which is also known as a genesis
block.
This Genesis block holds all the parameters related to blockchain behavior.
Genesis Block will define what your blockchain will do in its running time.
This will set your block, time, block size, hashing algorithm and also design your cryptocurrencies.
Genesis Block is a special kind of block, which is not linked with any previous block.
You can see in the diagram how each block after the Genesis block is linked to the previous one.
Once the Genesis Block zero has been filled with the blockchain protocols, we take a hash of this block
and include the hash into the next block.
What is a hash?
Hash is a algorithm which converts a variable length data to a fixed length of alphanumeric string.
So even if you have a small change in data, this will lead to the generation of an entirely different
hash value.
For example, a hashing algorithm, Sha 256 generates a fixed length of 256 bits of hash.
An input of 1kB or 1GB.
Both will lead to 256 bits of fixed length hash.
As you can see in the diagram we have linking established from one block to another.
This linking shows that the hash of the previous block has been stored in the next block.
Apart from the hash, we also have Merkle root and transactions.
All the transactions inside the blockchain are grouped under blocks.
For example, in Bitcoin blockchain.
After every ten minutes a new block is opened up and the network waits for all the transactions coming
in for that ten minutes period and stores them under the block.
Apart from transactions, blockchains also stores a Merkle root, which is a single source of truth
for all the transactions.
Even if one of the transactions change, the Merkle root will be different.
We will discuss more on Merkle trees and Merkle roots in the later parts of the sections.
Now let's go through some specific blockchain characteristics just by looking at the overview diagram.
We know that every block is connected to the next by incorporating the hash of the previous block.
This linking of blocks forms the chain after the addition of block into the chain.
The validation and the confirmation of the blocks are carried out by the miners.
In elementary terms, we can say that the miners inside the blockchain are doing some logical calculations
or playing a game trying to validate and confirm the blocks over the blockchain.
The miner who wins the game gets the awarded some reward, and all the miners shift to the validation
to the next block.
For example, miners received 12.5 bitcoins in Bitcoin blockchain and two ethers in Ethereum.
Blockchain blocks are created in chronological order by using different cryptographic algorithms, which
means that it's nearly impossible to delete and modify data over the blockchain.
The immutability of the blockchain is also maintained using consensus algorithm, which makes sure that
all the transactions inside the blockchain are validated and only added once the consensus has been
achieved.
This consensus is carried out by the nodes, as we mentioned that all the blocks inside the blockchain
are added in a chronological order.
This means each block has a timestamp associated with it, so we have a complete history of the blocks
maintained.
If my blockchain is running on one millionth block, then I can still track my blockchain back to the
first block and see how everything originated.
This is also true for Bitcoin blockchain where we can track back to see how Satoshi Nakamoto originated
the entire Bitcoin blockchain back in 2009.
Now let's summarize what blockchain is.
Blockchain in general is a digital store of information which is distributed and available over a peer
to peer network.
Blockchain is based upon cryptographic algorithms and runs consensus algorithms for security and immutability.
Every new block added inside the blockchain is linked to the previous block using the block hash.
All the blocks are present in chronological order, and every participant over the network can view
all the transactions.
If we want to define blockchain, in other words, we can say that blockchain is a digitized, distributed,
consensus based, secure storage of information protected from revision and tampering over a peer to
peer network.
That's how in a single definition we can summarize blockchain.
Now that we know a brief about blockchain, let's go into the history of the blockchain for more information
or queries.
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