Author: huberadrian

This chapter will be about all the features offered by the bitcoin blockchain as an application platform. We will consider the application building primitives, which form the building blocks of any blockchain application. The bitcoin system was designed as a decentralized currency and payment system. However, most of its functionality is derived from much lower-level constructs…… Continue reading Blockchain Applications

Earlier, we viewed as a way to generate new bitcoin. But more important, it is a decentralized security mechanism. Mining secures the bitcoin system and enables the emergence of network-wide consensus without a central authority. To earn the reward, miners compete to solve a difficult mathematical problem based on a cryptographic hash algorithm. The solution is called Proof-of-Work…… Continue reading Mining and Consensus

The blockchain is a file of transactions. It’s the most significant file that a bitcoin node maintains. It is called the “blockchain”, because new transactions are added to the file in blocks, built on top of the previous block to create a chain of blocks. But ultimately, the blockchain is permanent storage for bitcoin transactions. Each block within the blockchain is identified…… Continue reading The Blockchain

Bitcoin is structured as a peer-to-peer (P2P) network architecture on top of the internet. P2P means that all computers within the network are all equal, there is no server or a centralized service. The term “bitcoin network” refers to the collection of nodes running the bitcoin P2P protocol. There are other protocols such as Stratum…… Continue reading The Bitcoin Network

Like we learned earlier, the P2PKH script is the most common type of transactions. Now we look at advanced scripts, like multisignature scripts or Pay-to-Script-Hash. Multisignature Scripts These scripts set a condition, where N public keys are recorded in the script and at least M of those must provide signatures to unlock the funds (M-of-N…… Continue reading Advanced Transactions

Transactions are the most important part in the system, everything else is designed to create, validate or add transactions to the blockchain. This chapter is about: the various forms of transactionswhat they containhow to create and verifyhow they become part of the permanent record Transactions in Detail Earlier, we learned about a block explorer where…… Continue reading Transactions

Wallets are applications which serves as a user interface. They control access to the bitcoin, managing keys and creating/signing transactions. Technically, the word “wallet” refers to the data structure used to store and manage a user’s keys. Overview Wallets don’t store bitcoin, just the keys. The coins are recorded in the blockchain. Therefore, a bitcoin…… Continue reading Bitcoin Wallets

Like I written earlier, Bitcoin is based on cryptography. Cryptography can be used to prove knowledge of a secret without revealing that secret (digital signature), or prove the authenticity of data (digital fingerprint). This chapter will be about how control ownership of funds, in the form of keys, addresses, and wallets are possible through cryptography.…… Continue reading Keys and Addresses