Blockchain

Advanced programming

A block chain is a growing list of records, called blocks, that are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data (generally represented as a Merkle tree).

A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed, and oftentimes public, digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers so that any involved record cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks

A ledger is a permanent summary of all amounts entered in supporting journals which list individual transactions by date.

Videos

The video below is easily the best I have found explaining blockchain. I would suggest you watch it several times.

The video below is good high-level overview of blockchain, but doesn't hold a candle to the video above. If there was a nobel prize for awesome videos, the video above would deserve it.

Start here to understand blockchain

• Trust and Currency
• Hashing (related to this is cryptographic hash, collision resistance, determinism, one-way function and entropy).
• Digital signature (related to this is key pair generation and SHA256)
• Ledger
• Block (related to this is Block header and Candidate block)
• Mining (related to this is miner, nonce and proof of work)

Other ideas in blockchain

• Cryptocurrency
• Immutable transactions
• Merkle proof
• Merkle tree
• 51% attack
• Genesis block
• PuTTYgen
• Transaction pool
• Self-referential data structure
• Non-invertibility
• Distributed consensus
• Non-repudiation

Everything below this line is not yet completed for student learning

• Double-spend problem
• Takeover attack

Give a sequence of brief answers with no explanation.

Propose a solution, hypothesis or other possible answer.