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Blockchain
and DLT
(BLCH)
ITC801

Subject In-charge
Dr. Joanne Gomes
Professor Dept. of Information Technology SFIT
Room No. 316
email: [email protected]
Module 1
Lecture 4
Introduction To Blockchain Technology
 Topics
• Block in a Blockchain:
– Structure of a Block,
– Block Header
– Hash and Block Height
– The Genesis Block
– Linking Blocks in the Blockchain
– Merkle Tree.
 Structure of a Block in Blockchain
• The blockchain data structure is an ordered,
back-linked list of blocks of transactions, which
are connected with each other using hash
pointers.
• Each block within the blockchain is identified by
a hash and consists of a header section and a
body section.

• Th block header:
– It consists of six components such as version,
previous block hash, merkle tree hash,
timestamp, difficulty level and nonce.

• The body section:

– It consist of the list of transactions
Structure of a Block in Blockchain
 Structure of a Block
• Structure of a block in Bitcoin blockchain
Size Field Description
4 bytes Block Size The size of the block, in bytes, following this field
80 bytes Block Header Several fields form the block header
1-9 bytes (VarInt) Transaction Counter How many transactions follow
Variable Transactions The transactions recorded in this block
 Block Header

• Block Header:
➢ Version: This 4-byte field indicates the version number of
Bitcoin protocol being used, typically contains value “1.”
➢ hashPrevBlock: This 32-byte field contains a 256-bit hash
of the previous block header.
➢ hashMerkleRootHash: This 32-byte field contains a
256-bit hash of the root hash of the Merkle tree of
all the transactions in the current block.
➢ Time: This 4-byte field contains a timestamp of the
current block that is used to situate it
chronologically in the blockchain.
➢ Bits: This 4-byte field contains the target difficulty of
the current Bitcoin block which determines how
difficult the target hash will be to find.
➢ Nonce: This 4-byte field contains a 32-bit number
that a miner must alter in order to correctly solve
the computational puzzle for the current block.
 Structure of a Block-header
• Sample size of a block-header in Bitcoin blockchain

Size Field Description

4 bytes Version A version number to track software/protocol
Previous Block Hash upgrades
32 bytes Previous Block Hash A reference to the hash of the previous (parent)
block in the chain
32 bytes Merkle Root A hash of the root of the merkle tree of this block’s
transactions
4 bytes Timestamp The approximate creation time of this block (seconds
from Unix Epoch)
4 bytes Difficulty Target The proof-of-work algorithm difficulty target for this
block
4 bytes Nonce A counter used for the proof-of-work algorithm
 Structure of a Block-header

Size Field Description

4 bytes Version A version number to track software/protocol
Previous Block Hash upgrades
32 bytes Previous Block Hash A reference to the hash of the previous (parent)
block in the chain
32 bytes Merkle Root A hash of the root of the merkle tree of this block’s
transactions
4 bytes Timestamp The approximate creation time of this block (seconds
from Unix Epoch)
4 bytes Difficulty Target The proof-of-work algorithm difficulty target for this
block
4 bytes Nonce A counter used for the proof-of-work algorithm
 Block Identifiers: Hash and Block Height
• Block-Hash:
– The primary identifier of a block is its cryptographic hash (32-byte), a digital fingerprint,
made by hashing the block header twice through the SHA256 algorithm.
– It is more accurately the block header hash, because only the block header is used to
compute it.
– block hash is not included inside the block’s data structure. Instead, the block’s hash is
computed by each node as the block is received from the network.
• Block-Height:
– Second identifier of a block is its position in the blockchain and is called as block-height.
– The block height of a particular block is defined as the number of blocks preceding it in the
blockchain. The first block ever created is at block height 0 (zero) called Genesis block.
– Each subsequent block added “on top” of that first block is one position “higher” in the
blockchain, like boxes stacked one on top of the other.
– The block height on January 1, 2014, was approximately 278,000, meaning there were
278,000 blocks stacked on top of the first block created in January 2009.
– Unlike the block hash, the block height is not a unique identifier as two blocks can have
same height.
 The Genesis Block
• The Genesis Block, also known as Block 0, is the very first block upon which
additional blocks in a blockchain are added.
• It was created in 2009.
• The genesis block is statically encoded within the bitcoin client software,
such that it cannot be altered.
• Every node always “knows” the genesis block’s hash and structure, the fixed
time it was created, and even the single transaction within.
• It contains the secret message that was embedded by Satoshi Nakamoto,
bitcoin’s creator which is, "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of
second bailout for banks.".
• Hash of Genesis Block is
000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f
 Linking Blocks in the Blockchain
• Bitcoin full nodes maintain a local copy of the blockchain,
starting at the genesis block.
• The local copy of the blockchain is constantly updated as
new blocks are found and used to extend the chain.
• As a node receives incoming blocks from the network, it will
validate these blocks and then link them to the existing
blockchain.
• To establish a link, a node will examine the incoming block
header and look for the “previous block hash.”
• Let’s assume, for example, that a node has 277,314 blocks
in the local copy of the blockchain.
• The last block, the node knows about is block 277,314, with
a block header hash of
00000000000000027e7ba6fe7bad39faf3b5a83daed765f05f
7d1b71a1632249.
• It then creates block number 277,315
 Merkle Tree
• Each block in the bitcoin blockchain contains a summary of all the transactions in the block, using a
merkle tree.
• A merkle tree, also known as a binary hash tree, containing cryptographic hashes.
• It is a data structure used for efficiently summarizing and verifying the integrity of large sets of data.
• The term “tree” is used in computer science to describe a branching data structure, but these trees are
usually displayed upside down with the “root” at the top and the “leaves” at the bottom of a diagram.
• It produces an overall digital fingerprint (hash) of the entire set of transactions
 Merkle Tree
• A Merkle tree is constructed by recursively hashing pairs of nodes until there is only one
hash, called the root, or merkle root.
• It is constructed bottom-up.
• The cryptographic hash algorithm used in bitcoin’s merkle trees is SHA256. It is applied
twice, so also known as double-SHA256.
H(A) = SHA256(SHA256(Transaction A))
• The two 32-byte hashes of the children are concatenated to create a 64-byte string, this
string is then double-hashed to produce the parent node’s hash:
H(AB) = SHA256(SHA256(H(A) + H(B)))
• The process continues until there is only one node at the top, the node known as the Merkle
root.
• That 32-byte hash is stored in the block header and summarizes all the data in all four
transactions.
• It needs an even number of leaf nodes.
• If there is an odd number of transactions to summarize, the last transaction hash will be
duplicated to create an even number of leaf nodes, also known as a balanced tree.
Thank You