DEV Community: Saroj

Ethereum's Four Stages of Development

Saroj — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 12:48:34 +0000

Ethereum!

What is an Ethereum?

Many of you know, that Ethereum is the native blockchain of ETH cryptocurrency.

Yup.

Not only this, it has a lot of other features. Once go through my previous article about Ethereum to learn more about it.

Well,

So, what are the four stages of Ethereum's development?

As might few of you know, Ethereum's development was planned over four distinct stages, with major changes occurring at each stage. A stage may include a sub-release, known as hard fork, that changes functionality in a way that is not backward compatible.

The four main development stages are codenamed Frontier, Homestead, Metropolis, and Serenity. The intermediate hard forks that have occurred (or are planned) to date are codenamed Ice Age, DAO, Tangerine, Whistle, Spurious, Dragon, Byzantium, and Constantinople. Let's see below all of these development stages and the intermediate hard forks with the block numbers.

Frontier (Block #0)

Frontier is the initial stage of Ethereum, lasting from July 30, 2015, to March 2016,

Ice Age (Block #200000)

It is a hard fork to introduce an exponential difficulty increase, to motivate a transaction to PoS when ready.

Homestead (Block #1150000)

Homestead is the second stage of Ethereum, launched in March 2016.

DAO (Block #1192000)

DAO is a hard fork that reimbursed victims of the hacked DAO contract and caused Ethereum and Ethereum Classic to split into two competing systems.

Tangerine Whistle (Block #2463000)

It is a hard fork to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-heavy operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial-of-service(DoS) attack that exploited the low gas cost of those operations.

Spurious Dragon (Block #2675000)

Spurious Dragon is a hard fork to address more DoS attack vectors and another state clearing. Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.

Metropolis Byzantium (Block #4370000)

Metropolis is the third stage of Ethereum, launched in October 2017. Byzantium is the first two hard forks planned for Metropolis.

After Byzantium, there is one more hard fork planned for Metropolis: Constantinople. Metropolis will be followed by the final stage of Ethereum's development, codenamed Serenity.

This is a small overview of Ethereum's development stages.

I hope you found it informative.

Thanks for reading :)

What is a Cryptographic Token?

Saroj — Sun, 08 May 2022 16:00:56 +0000

Any idea about what is the token?

Well,

Before coming into Cryptographic Token, let's try to understand it in a very simpler way.

Have you ever bought a lottery ticket? A lottery ticket is kind of a token, it's for the prizes that maybe you can own. A token is a kind of something that can be exchanged for some assets or value in the future. Like this, tokens are also valid inside the cryptographic world.

Let's explore how.

Introduction

A cryptographic token represents a programmable asset that is created and managed by a smart contract. The smart contract decides the number of units to be created and handles the transactions involving the token and each token holder's balance.

Types of Tokens

In cryptography, there are mostly 3 types of tokens available. Those are

Utility Tokens
Security Tokens
ERC Tokens

Let's discuss them one by one.

1. Utility Tokens

Utility tokens are user tokens that provide access to the products or services offered by the company. They can help in driving the internal economy within a blockchain project. They can be used to provide an advantage to the holders of the utility tokens. The holder can be privileged to do voting on the important decisions on the blockchain project.

Let's say I am doing a project with the help of blockchain. And the final product will come after 2/4 years. But I need some funds to manage the project, right? For that, I can create a token on the behalf of the project with very minimal cost. people can buy the tokens and they will also get benefited from this project as well as can use the other services provided by the company.

Ex:- Golem Network Token(GNT) provides the holder's access to the Golem ecosystem.

2. Security Tokens

Security tokens are tokens that represent legal ownership of physical or digital assets. They are generally tied to the company's profit and loss valuation. These tokens are heavily regulated, and failing to comply with the regulations shall have serious consequences which can even lead to the shutdown of the complete blockchain project. Some examples of security tokens are the Siacoin token, Blockstack STX token, etc.

3. ERC Tokens

ERC tokens are a kind of very useful token in the cryptographic ecosystem. Token management can be significantly standardized as it follows very similar functionality and attributes of domains where these are used.

The Ethereum community has taken a lead on this and EIPs standardized definitions for developers to code and deploy. ERC tokens define rules that will enable the tokens to be handled and exchanged between various DApps(Decentralized Applications) and wallets.

List of ERC tokens

ERC20 Tokens
ERC721 Tokens

I hope all of you got some basic idea about the tokens, their types, and their uses. I will create a new article specially for ERC tokens to describe in-depth.

Stay tuned for a new article.

Thanks for reading out this. Lots of love. :)

Public and Private Keys in Cryptocurrency

Saroj — Sun, 01 May 2022 11:09:05 +0000

Well,

Today, we are going to discuss public and private key, and how it is a very crucial part of cryptocurrency.

Cool!

You all know what is a key right? In our daily life, we are using it for locking purposes, let's say, you have a key for your luggage, or you may have a key for your bag, etc. Like this, we will use this key in cryptocurrencies.

Let's see how :)

You may have heard that bitcoin is based on cryptography, which is a branch of mathematics used extensively in computer security. Cryptography means "secret writing" in Greek, but the science of cryptography is more than just secret writing.

Ownership of bitcoin is established through digital keys, bitcoin addresses, and digital signatures. The digital keys are not actually stored in the network but are instead created and stored by users in a file, or simple database called a wallet. Keys enable many of the interesting properties of bitcoin, including decentralized trust and control, ownership, and a cryptographic-proof security model.

So, here keys come into the picture. let's explore them.

Private Key

A private key is simply a number, picked at random. Ownership and control over the private key is the root of user control over all funds associated with the corresponding bitcoin address. The private key is used to create signatures that are required to spend bitcoin y providing ownership of funds used in a transaction. The private key must remain secret at all times because revealing it to third parties is the same as giving them control over the bitcoins secured by that key.

You can pick your private keys randomly using just a coin, pencil, and paper: toss a coin 256 times and you have the binary digits of a random private key you can use in a bitcoin wallet. The public key can then be generated from the private key.

Example: 1E99423A4ED27608A15A261A2B0E9E52CED330AC530EDEC322C8FFC6A32S5EFYYCD0DD

Public Key

The public key is calculated from the private key using elliptic curve multiplication, which is irreversible: K = k*G, where k is the private key, G is a constant point called the generator point, and K is the resulting public key. We can generate multiple public keys from a private key, but it is impossible to generate the private key, from a public key.

Elliptic curve multiplication is a type of function that cryptographers call a "trap door" function: it is easy to do in one direction and impossible to do in the reverse direction. The owner of the private key can easily create the public key and then share it with the world knowing that no one can reverse the function and calculate the private key from the public key. This mathematics trick becomes the basis of an unforgettable and secure digital signature that proves ownership of bitcoin funds.

This is the basic idea about public and private keys. I am sure you got some idea of how these work inside a cryptocurrency.

That's all for today.

See you soon with a new article!

Types of Blockchains inside the Bitcoin Network

Saroj — Sat, 23 Apr 2022 14:16:45 +0000

Hey Guys, what's up?

Hope all are doing well.

Today we will discuss the types of blockchains inside the bitcoin network.

Interesting right?

Great!

Before starting this I am assuming you are aware of bitcoin and blockchain technology. If not, please read my previous articles here

Cool :)

You know bitcoin right? And also you know that bitcoin is powered by blockchain technology. You might be surprised to know that, there is more than one bitcoin blockchain. The "main" blockchain, the one created by Satoshi Nakamoto on Jan 3rd, 2009, is called the mainnet. There are other bitcoin blockchains that are used for the testing purpose are also available, those are testnet, segnet, and regtest.

Let's look at each :)

Testnet

Testnet (or Bitcoin's Testing Playground) is the name of the test blockchain, network, and currency that is used for testing purposes. As you know bitcoin is a decentralized system, once data is added to bitcoin it can't be modified or deleted. For that reason, we need to do the test before adding to bitcoin.

Got some idea?

let's look in more depth!

The testnet is a fully featured live P2P network, with wallets, test bitcoin, mining, and all the other feature of the mainnet. There are only two differences: testnet coins are meant to be worthless and mining difficulty should be low enough that everyone can mine testnet coins relatively easily.

Any software development that is intended for production use on bitcoin's mainnet should first be tested on the testnet with test coins, so that, it protects both the developers from monetary losses due to bugs and the network from unintended behavior due to bugs.

Eg:- testnet3(current version of testnet)

Segnet

Segnet or The Segregated Witness Testnet in launched in 2016. It is a special purpose testnet to aid in the development and testing of Segregated Witness. This test blockchain is called segnet and can be joined by running a special version(branch) of Bitcoin Core(original bitcoin).

Regtest

Regtest, which stands for Regression Testing, is a Bitcoin Core feature that allows you to create a local blockchain for testing purposes. Unlike testnet3, which is a public and shared test blockchain, the regtest blockchain is intended to run as a closed system for local testing.

I hope you got some idea about testing bitcoin blockchains.

Conclusion

Bitcoin's various blockchains (regtest, segnet, testnet3, mainnet) offer a range of testing environments for bitcoin development. Use the test blockchains whether you are developing for Bitcoin Core or an application such as a wallet, exchange, e-commerce site, etc.

This is a simple overview of testing blockchains inside the bitcoin network. I hope you got some idea like, what is a testnet, to regtest, and for what purpose we should use them.

Awesome!

Thanks for reading this article. See you soon with a new one!

What is Blockchain Mining? And how does it happen?

Saroj — Sun, 17 Apr 2022 03:51:27 +0000

Well,

I hope all are doing good. Today we will see about blockchain mining and its process.

Cool!

So, what exactly is Blockchain mining?

Any idea?

In simple words, Mining is the process of recording new transactions on the blockchain ledger. Or we can say, it is the process by which we can add a new block inside a blockchain network.

Saroj, what is this process, what is mining, it's confusing... huh! explain more.

wait guys, we will see in-depth!

Process of Mining

As you know, a blockchain is a decentralized network(or group of nodes), and there is no central or head node. So when a new node wants to join that network, it's not possible to join directly. It must have some process to add to that network, it's called the Mining process.

Ohh is it? Saroj, we got some idea about Mining Process, but who actually add this node into the network?

Yaa, Good question.

So, who will do the mining?

Miners need to do the Mining! A miner is nothing but a computer or group of computers. Humans can also be a miner, but the solution is more complex for us to solve. A Miner needs to do some solution to add a block. Mining rewards are given to the miner who first finds the solution to a complicated hashing problem(solution).

Still, getting confused? Let's try to understand using a diagram.

Let's say I am a miner. I need to solve a mathematical solution to add a block to the network. If I found the solution, then the block will be added to the blockchain network. But, what happens if I am not able to find the solution? In that case, my transaction will be added to the transaction pool. It is nothing but, a group of unconfirmed transactions, that are waiting to be added.

wait wait... it's not finished yet!

Let's imagine, there is a blockchain network containing 30 blocks. And there is a hacker, he/she wants to hack this network by adding a new block or group of blocks. Then it's a problem, right?

yes Saroj, it's a big issue. How can we solve this issue?

Here, the Longest Chain Rule comes into the picture. :)

Longest Chain Rule

The longest chain rule is a rule that a miner must follow if he/she wants to do the mining.

Let's say, there are two groups of blocks(nodes), one is about 6 blocks, and the second one(attackers) is about 3 blocks. In that case, the blockchain network will accept only the longest chain blocks(group one) and the second group will be rejected. A blockchain with more blocks will consume more energy to build than a chain with fewer blocks. And, always node follows the longest chain rule.

Also, mining is two types

Solo Mining
Polo Mining

In solo mining, only 1 computer is involved in the mining process, whereas in the case of polo mining, a group of computers is involved in the mining process.

Got some idea about mining and miners?

yes man, thanks for the great info about mining and miners.

Great!

Thank you guys for reading this article. I hope you found it interesting :)

See you soon with a new article.

Cryptocurrency Wallet and its types

Saroj — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 14:02:42 +0000

Hey Guys,

Hope all are doing good.

Great!

Today I come up with a new topic, i.e. Cryptocurrency Wallets. We will see how many types of wallets are there and how it is stored.

So, let's start then :)

Before starting this, I assume you all know some basics about cryptocurrencies and blockchain. If not, please have some basic knowledge from here

Cool!

You all know what is a wallet right?

of course Saroj! Because we all have money, and for storing it we need a wallet.

That's right!

Yaa, we all know, we are storing physical money inside a wallet. Have you ever thought, about how digital currencies or cryptocurrencies are stored?

Let's explore, how

You may hear that bitcoins are stored in wallets. If this were true, then if you copied your wallets you'd own double the number of bitcoins. Clearly, you couldn't have digital money that works this way. So no, bitcoins aren't stored in wallets.

Then, where are bitcoins stored?

Well, ownership of bitcoins is recorded on Bitcoin's blockchain, which is, as we know, the database replicated on over 10,000 computers around the world containing every Bitcoin transaction ever. Bitcoin wallets store private keys(not bitcoins!) and their software makes it easy for the wallet to see how many coins they control and to make payments.

Got some idea?

Great! I'm happy for you :)

Now, let's see how many types of wallets are available for cryptocurrencies.

As you can see in the above image, bitcoin wallets are 3 types

Software wallet
Hardware wallet
Paper wallet

Let's explore them one by one.

1. Software Wallet

Software wallets are nothing but, they can be some wallet software or mobile applications or also a desktop applications. Bitcoin wallets are apps that can at least

Create new Bitcoin addresses and store the corresponding private keys

Display your addresses to someone who wants to send you a payment.

Display how many bitcoins are in your addresses.

Make Bitcoin payments.

Software wallets are easy to use, you can access these using your mobile apps, software, or a website. But, these are less secure to store large amounts of bitcoins. Because, as you know, apps or software can be hacked by a hacker.

Some examples of software wallets are

blockchain.info
electrum
Jaxx
breadwallet etc.

2. Hardware wallet

Sometimes Bitcoin wallets can have a hardware component also. Private keys are stored in chips called small handheld devices. Hardware wallets are nothing but, they are like Pendrive or SSD, where we can store the bitcoin's key. These are more secure compared to software wallets.

But, before storing a bitcoin address into a hardware wallet we need to make sure that, the address and key are encrypted. Otherwise, if we lost the device, then anyone can access our data. two popular hardware wallets are called Trezor and Ledger Nano.

3. Paper wallet

These are nothing but, typically a paper, where we print the bitcoin addresses and keys. These are also more secure than software wallets. Paper wallets are used for storing large amounts of bitcoins. Again, we need to encrypt the bitcoin's addresses and keys before storing them in a paper wallet, as these can be stolen.

Wait wait... not finished yet!

There are also 2 types of wallets in bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.

These are Cold Storage and Hot Storage.

The phrase "Cold Storage" is keeping a note of those private keys on offline media, such as a piece of paper or a computer not connected to the internet.

And a hot wallet is a wallet that can sign and broadcast transactions without manual intervention. Exchanges, which control many bitcoins need to manage lots of Bitcoin payments, they often have a hot wallet that controls a small proportion of their total bitcoins.

Yeah, here we ended this topic!

I am sure, you got some idea of how we are storing bitcoins, and their types.

Awesome!

See you soon with a brand new article.

Types of Blockchain

Saroj — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 05:25:17 +0000

Hey all,

I know all are doing good only, that's great!

Today I come up with a new article on types of blockchain.

Before that, I am assuming you have an idea about blockchain technology. If not please read my previous article about this.

Awesome!

Why wait then? let's start :)

So, as you know, a blockchain is a chain of data blocks stored in hundreds or thousands of computers or servers distributed over a wide geographical area. It is a complete ledger that maintains a copy of all the credit/debit(not in all cases) transactions of a digital asset. And, blockchain is based on decentralized technologies.

Got some idea?

Superb!

Now, let's see how many types of blockchains are available.

As you can see in the above image, there are 4 types of blockchain is available.

They are

Permissioned Blockchain
Private Blockchain
Federated/Consortium Blockchain
Public Blockchain

Let's see them one by one.

1. Private Blockchain

A private blockchain is also called the permissioned blockchain. In this type, only the individuals involved in a contract will have the information of it, while the others will not be able to access it. It is also a faster and more cost-effective system. Only authorized nodes can read and write the transaction data into this blockchain. But, a private blockchain is less secure as compared to a public blockchain.

Example:- Linux foundation's Hperledger Fabric.

2. Public Blockchain

A public blockchain is a permissionless blockchain. Anybody can access the network and read-write on participants without explicit authorization and permission.

Example:- Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, etc.

3. Federated/Consortium Blockchain

A consortium or federated blockchain is a private, permissioned blockchain. It is opposed to the public blockchain, where entities can only become members of the network by prior approval or voting. In this type of blockchain, permissions are vested in a group of companies to individuals. Also, only consortium members can make, validate, and renew the transactions.

Example:- R3 Corda Blockchain

A permissioned blockchain is the same as a private blockchain.

I am now 100% sure, you have got some idea about the types of blockchain.

That's Great!

This is all for today, see you soon with a new interesting article. I hope you enjoy this reading.

Cheers!

What is a Peer-to-Peer(P2P) Network in Blockchain?

Saroj — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 16:12:45 +0000

Hello Guys,

Hope all are doing great!

Today I'm coming up with a new concept that we must know in a blockchain network i.e. Peer-to-Peer(P2P) network.

So, what is a Peer-to-Peer or P2P network?

Any idea?

Cool.

Let's start!

In this article, we will see, how the Bitcoin network works as a P2P network model.

Bitcoin is structured as a peer-to-peer network architecture on top of the internet. The term peer-to-peer, or P2P, means that all the computers that participate in the network are peer to each other, that they are all equal, that there are no "special" or "central" nodes, and all nodes share the burden of providing network services.

Confusing?

Let's try to understand with an image.

As you can see in the above image, all nodes(peers) are connected with each other, and there are no central or special nodes. The network nodes are interconnected in a mesh network with a "flat" topology. There is no server, no centralized service, and no hierarchy within the network. Nodes in a P2P network both provide and consume services at the same time with reciprocity acting as the incentive for participation. P2P networks are inherently resilient, decentralized, and open.

The best example of P2P network architecture was the early internet itself, where nodes on the IP network were equal. Today's internet architecture is more hierarchical, but the Internet Protocol still retains its flat-topology model.

I hope now you got some idea about the Peer-to-Peer(P2P) network.

Great!

Now, let's see all types of P2P networks.

Unstructured P2P network
Structured P2P network
Hybrid P2P network

1. Unstructured P2P Network

In this type of network, there is no specific organization of the nodes. Participants communicate randomly with one another. Also, this type of network is robust in nature.

2. Structured P2P Network

It allows nodes to precise search for files, even if the content is not available. This type of network is more efficient. And it requires higher maintenance.

3. Hybrid P2P Network

This type combines the conventional client-server model with some facts of the P2P architecture. It also improves the overall performance.

This is the basic idea of a Peer-to-Peer or P2P network. I am sure, you got some idea about it.

That's great actually!

Hope you enjoy this reading. See you soon with a new article.

What does a Block look like in a Blockchain?

Saroj — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 06:05:29 +0000

Hey Guys,

Hope all are doing well.

Great!

Today we will see about the block, and what does it look like in a blockchain network.

I assume you are aware of block structure. If not, please read my previous article here.

Awesome.

Block is the head of a blockchain network. without blocks, you can't create a blockchain. and every block interlinked with each other. Let's see how.

As you can see in the above diagram, a block is consists of Nonce, SHA256, the previous block signature, and some transactions.

Genesis Block

The very first block is called a Genesis Block or Block 0. Because this block doesn't contain any previous block signature.

Able to understand somewhat?

Great!

Let's see other parts.

Nonce

Every block must have a Nonce. A nonce is created by a miner, who mines the block into a blockchain network. These are generated in a particular way through the mining algorithm. It contains some value, and it is different from other nonce values.

SHA256

SHA256 is a simple hash algorithm that crunches any length of data into a unique string of a fixed length. Each block has a different HSA256.

Eg. ba7816bf8f01cfea414140de5dae2223b00361a396177a9cb410ff61f20015ad

Signature

Genesis block doesn't contain a signature. Because, it is the very first block, or block 0. Once the genesis block is formed, the signature will be added to the next block. A signature is the HSA256 value of the previous block. Block 1's signature value is the same as Block 0's SHA256 value. Block 2's signature value is the same as Block 1's SHA256 value. And so on. With the help of this signature value, every block is linked with another block.

Transactions

Each block contains some transactions, but not the genesis block. Transactions can be anything like let's say, A has 10 coins, B has 20 coins and C has 40 coins. A transferred 5 coins to B and C transferred 10 coins to B. Like this, every transaction is stored in a block.

I think you have got some idea about the block.

Great!

If you further need any help, try to connect with me. I’ll be happy to solve your doubts.

Till then, keep learning and keep smiling :)

Thanks for reading this. See you soon with a new article.

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History of Bitcoin!

Saroj — Sat, 26 Mar 2022 10:07:31 +0000

Hey Guys,

Hope all are doing well,

Awesome,

So, today we will see all about Bitcoin's history, starting from its birth!

Yaa, you read it right, starting from its Birth.

Then why wait? Let's start :)

Bitcoin's early history
I think you might hear about 'Bitcoin (the protocol) has never been hacked, but they are wrong. Yes! Bitcoin has been hacked. In 2007 it's mentioned on a website that "A pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto began working on Bitcoin".

Now, let's see further details.

18 Aug 2008

The website bitcoin.org was registered using anomymousspeech.com, a broker that registers domains on behalf of customers who can choose to remain anonymous. This shows how important privacy was to the person or group involved in Bitcoin.

31 Oct 2008

This is the date when we can say Bitcoin launched officially. The Bitcoin whitepaper, written under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, was released on an obscure but fascinating mailing list metzdowd.com that is much loved by cypherpunks. Wikipedia has this to say about cypherpunks.

3 Jan 2009

The genesis(first) block was mined. On this day, Bitcoin's blockchain has formed. At that moment, the first bitcoins, fifty of them, were created out of thin air and recorded into its blockchain(block zero). The transaction that contains the mining reward, the so-called 'coinbase' transaction, contains the text:

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"

The text refers to a headline of the UK newspaper The Times.

Some interesting aside: The 50 BTC mined in the first block are unspendable. They sit in address, but the account holder, presumable Satoshi, whoever he, she, or they may be, is unable to transfer them to anyone else due to some quirk in the code.

9 Jan 2009

On this day, the version of 0.1 of the Bitcoin software was released by Satoshi Nakamoto, along with its source code. With the help of this, people can review the code, and download and run the software, so they can be both bookkeepers and miners. Bitcoin was thus accessible to anyone who wanted to download and use it.

12 Jan 2009

The first Bitcoin payment was made from Satoshi's address to Hal Finney's address in block 170, the first recorded movement of bitcoins. Hal Finney was a cryptographer, cypherpunk, and a coder, and some people believe he was partly behind the Satoshi pseudonym.

6 Feb 2010

It was kind of a historical day for Bitcoin. Because, the first Bitcoin exchange, "The Bitcoin Market," was created by bitcointalk.org forum user 'dwdollar'.

Previously, people traded bitcoins, but in a relatively unstructured way in chat rooms and messages boards.

22 May 2010

It's Pizza day for Bitcoin :) This was the first documented time bitcoins were used to pay for something in the real world. Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer in Florida, USA, offered to pay 10,000 BTC for a pizza on the bitcointalk forum.

I love Pizza btw, just kidding :)

17 Jul 2010

Jed McCaleb, (who has more recently founded Steller, a cryptocurrency platform based on Ripple), converted his card trading exchange into a Bitcoin trading exchange.

It's interesting, right?

Great!

Let's see some history more.

15 Aug 2010

It was kind of a black day for Bitcoin. On this day, Bitcoin's protocol got hacked. A potential vulnerability was discovered, and someone exploited this vulnerability in block 74,638 to create 184 billion bitcoins for themselves. This strange transaction was quickly discovered and, with the consent of the majority of the community, the whole blockchain was 'forked', reverting it to a previous state.

If anyone says, Bitcoin hasn't even been hacked, ask them "What about the integer overflow bug in August 2010 where someone sent themself 184 billion bitcoins?"

18 Sep 2010

The first mining pool, Slush's pool, lined its first block. A mining pool is an organization where multiple participants combine their hash power to give themself a better chance of winning a block. The participants split the reward between them in proportion to their hash power contributions.

7 Jan 2011

12 BTC were exchanged for $300,000,000,000,000. This is probably the highest exchange rate between Bitcoin even achieved. However, these dollars were Zimbabwean dollars.

9 Feb 2011

On this day, Mt Gox Bitcoin exchange, Bitcoin reached parity with the US dollar i.e. 1 BTC = 1 USD.

7 Apr 2011

VirWox, a website that allowed customers to convert between fiat currencies and Linden Dollars(the virtual currency for use within the computer game), integrated Bitcoin. People could now exchange directly between bitcoins and Liden Dollars. This is possibly the first virtual currency to virtual currency exchange.

1 Jun 2011

WIRED magazine published a famous article, "Underground website lets you buy any drug imaginable", written by Adrian Chen. It described a website called The Silk Road, launched in Feb 2011 and run by twenty-seven-year-old Ross William Ulbricht under the nickname "Dread Pirate Roberts". The Silk Road was described as a kind of eBay for drugs.

20 Jun 2011

Possibly the first documented evidence of a physical brick-and-mortar merchant accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment. Room 77, a restaurant based in Berlin, Germany sold fast food for bitcoins.

2 Sep 2011

Mike Caldwell started creating physical bitcoins which he called Casacius coins. They are physical discs of metal, each with a unique private key embedded behind a hologram sticker. Each coin's private key is linked to an address that is funded with a specified amount of bitcoins., as depicted on the coins.

8 May 2012

Satoshi Dice was a gambling website launched on 24 April 2012. Users could send bitcoins to specific addresses with a chance of winning up to 64,000 times their original stake. Each address had a different payout and a different chance f winning. On 8 May, it became responsible for over half of the transaction volume in the Bitcoin blockchain.

28 Nov 2012

Bitcoin's first block reward halving day: On block 210,000 the block reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC, slowing the rate of generation of bitcoins. Transaction fees then were insignificant, so this halving day reduced y half of each block's financial reward for miners.

2 May 2013

The first two-way Bitcoin ATM was launched in San Diego, California. This was a machine where you could buy bitcoins or sell your bitcoins for cash. This sparked a wave of one-way Bitcoin ending machines and two-way Bitcoin ATMs being installed around the world.

Jul 2013

This month, the first Bitcoin ETF(Exchange Traded Fund) proposal was filed with the United States of Securities and Exchange Commission. An ETF could make an investment into Bitcoin more accessible to the public as many funds are allowed to buy ETFs but not bitcoins directly.

6 Aug 2013

Bitcoin was classified as a currency by a judge in Texas, USA. his was one of many arguments and determination of heat Bitcoin is: Currency? Property? A Security? Some other financial Assets? A New Thing? There is still no global definition, and there may never be a globally consistent one.

9 Aug 2013

Bitcoin's price became searchable through Bloomberg software, which is popular with traders in traditional financial markets. Bloomberg used the ticker 'XBT' to represent Bitcoin, consistent with I currency code standards.

20 Aug 2013

Bitcoin was ruled private money in Germany, with tax exemption if held for more than a year. The tax treatment of bitcoins and cryptocurrency is a major point of contention, especially in the US where the buying ad selling of bitcoins attracts capital gains.

22 Nov 2013

Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Galactic, announced he would accept bitcoins as payment for a flight t space. Bitcoins and space travel - what a great time to be alive.

Here, we have reached the end of the history of Bitcoin

I know you found it interesting :)

Great!

That's my job.

Again, thanks for reading this out. See you with a new article.

Still have any issues, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn Twitter

Structure of the Block inside a Blockchain Network

Saroj — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 04:02:50 +0000

Hey Guys,

What's up?

So, today we will see, the structure of the block inside a blockchain network.

Let's start!

wait, wait...

Before starting, I guess you are familiar with Blockchain, if not, then please read my previous article here.

Will it work for you?

Awesome!

Then why wait? let's start :)

As you know, blockchain is consists of a chain of blocks, it is must necessary to have some data inside a block. Without any data, it is impossible to insert a new block. Data are like oxygen for humans; without oxygen, humans can't live. Like this way, without data, blocks inside a blockchain network can't exist(It must have some data).

I can't relate to a better example for this. Just kidding. :)

Cool!

Now, let's see the structure of a block!

As you can see in the above diagram, a block is differentiated into 2 parts.

Block Head
Block Body

Let's talk about Block head first.

Block head is also divided into six components. Those are

Version number
Previous block hash
Merkle tree root hash
Nbits
Nonce
Timestamp

The block version number indicates which set of block validation rules to follow. This is useful for a miner, who wants to mine(to insert a new block) inside the blockchain network. That means, let's say I want to mine, I need the block version to check the rules and regulations provided by that version. Every block version has some rules to follow, which is provided by the blockchain network.

A Markle tree encodes the blockchain data in an efficient and secure manner. It enables the quick verification of the blockchain data.

The data itself is first hashed. Then the hashes are hashed again and merged. Finally, the Merkle tree merged into a single hash, called root hash. It is also called the root of the tree.

The hash of the previous block is the chain of blockchain. Because the hash of the previous block is contained on a hash of the new block. The blocks of the blockchain are all built on each other.

With the help of n Bits, the current difficulty is used to create this block. This means it will decide how the block is to be going to create.

A nonce is a variable increment by the Proof-of-Work(PoW). In this way, the miner guesses a valid hash, a hash that is smaller than the target.

And timestamp is the block itself. Each block contains a unique timestamp. A timestamp is accepted as valid if it is greater than the median of the previous 11 blocks and less than the network adjusted time. Network adjusted time is the median of all blocks present inside the blockchain network.

Now, let's talk about the Block body.

The transaction counter is the place where all transactions are done. Let's say, there are 10 transactions is done inside a block, then transaction counter creates a copy of every single transaction for its future reference. And those transactions are stored separately.

Here, we ended up with the structure of a block inside a blockchain network. I know, it's kind of confusing, if you are new to blockchain. But I'm pretty sure, you must have got some idea about the block.

Right?

Awesome!

If you further need any help, try to connect with me. I'll be happy to solve your doubts.

Till then, keep learning and keep smiling :)

Thanks for reading this. See you soon with a new article.

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How does the Blockchain work?

Saroj — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 05:20:33 +0000

Any idea about Blockchain?

Well,

Let's see first, what Blockchain is! and then we will discuss how it works.

Blockchain is a chain of data blocks stored in hundred or thousands or even millions of computers (servers) distributed over a wide geographical area. It is a complete ledger that maintains a copy of all the credit/debit transactions of digital assets. It is based on decentralized technologies.

Eg. Bitcoin is a great example of a blockchain application or we can say it works on decentralized principle. That means when a new Node(server) is added to the bitcoin network, it is impossible to modify or delete that node. It works on a Peer-to-Peer(P2P) network, where each Peer acts as a server.

This diagram describes how a P2P network is established in a blockchain network.

I'm pretty sure, now you have got an idea about blockchain and P2P networks.

Great!

Now, let's see how blockchain works.

Excited?

Me too!

We can define the blockchain as a system that allows the group of connected computers to maintain a single updated and secured ledger. As we know blockchain is consists of a chain of blocks, for every new transaction, a new block needs to create.

So, how a block(node) is created inside the blockchain network?

The very first step of creating a block is, a user must request for a transaction to be added to the blockchain network, also that transaction must include some required information(like transaction id, hash id, timestamp, etc).

After the transaction is verified, the second step is, a new block is created into the blockchain network(but not added).

Once a block is created, then it will broadcast to a P2P(Peer-to-Peer) network. P2P networks also consist of blocks(nodes). Then, the one P2P node verifies the transaction.

After successfully verifying, the transaction again moves to the next stage, that is, other nodes in that network also need to verify, since all nodes are interlinked with each other.

and here comes to the last stage, that is

Once the transaction is validated by other nodes in the network, then the block is ready to go. And now, the block(transaction) is added to the existing blockchain network.

That is how the blockchain works.

I know it is kind of a bit confusing if you are new to blockchain. But trust me, once you understand it, it will be fun for you.

Like me :) haha

Cool!

Thanks for reading my article.

See you soon with a new topic!

Till then, drink coffee and write code