Blockchain

               

Nowadays when we need to split bills at restaurants among friends or when we need to pay in shops we just swipe cards or we pay online. But many a times either our bank server is down or there is some network issue. Now a days, a type of digital money is becoming very popular which is known as cryptocurrency. Blockchain is the  technology that is used to run cryptocurrency. Simply, blockchain can be described as collection of records linked with each other which are protected using technology.

The data which is stored inside a block depends on the type of blockchain. For instance, A Bitcoin Block contains information about the Sender, Receiver and number of bitcoins to be transferred.The first block in the chain is called the Genesis block. Each new block in the chain is linked to the previous block.Each block has data, hash and hash of previous block.

Data is the transaction that is to be performed. Hash can be understood as a finger print which is unique for each and every block. Different cryptocurriences use different hash. For eg- Bitcoin uses SHA256  whereas Etherum uses ETHASH. If any data in the block changes new hash is created and thus a new block. Thus the hash is very useful when you want to detect changes to intersections. All the blocks in blockchain contains the hash of previous block.

This is the way in which blockchain identifies distinct transactions and is able to trace them. Thus making the use of cryptocurrency secure and accountable.