How is the Genesis Block statically encoded into bitcoin client software?

Question

What does 'statically encoded' even mean?

Answer 1

What does 'statically encoded' even mean?

See:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/572547/what-does-static-mean-in-c
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary-to-text_encoding

In the case of Bitcoin-Core it is actually coded† in C++ rather than encoded‡ in some encoding like Hex, Base58, etc.

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How Is The Genesis Block statically encoded into bitcoin client software?

In src/chainparams.cpp you can find

static CBlock CreateGenesisBlock(const char* pszTimestamp, const CScript& genesisOutputScript, uint32_t nTime, uint32_t nNonce, uint32_t nBits, int32_t nVersion, const CAmount& genesisReward)
{
    CMutableTransaction txNew;
    txNew.nVersion = 1;
    txNew.vin.resize(1);
    txNew.vout.resize(1);
    txNew.vin[0].scriptSig = CScript() << 486604799 << CScriptNum(4) << std::vector<unsigned char>((const unsigned char*)pszTimestamp, (const unsigned char*)pszTimestamp + strlen(pszTimestamp));
    txNew.vout[0].nValue = genesisReward;
    txNew.vout[0].scriptPubKey = genesisOutputScript;

    CBlock genesis;
    genesis.nTime    = nTime;
    genesis.nBits    = nBits;
    genesis.nNonce   = nNonce;
    genesis.nVersion = nVersion;
    genesis.vtx.push_back(MakeTransactionRef(std::move(txNew)));
    genesis.hashPrevBlock.SetNull();
    genesis.hashMerkleRoot = BlockMerkleRoot(genesis);
    return genesis;
}

And, apparently for each of mainnet, testnet, ... this static function is called like this example (with different parameters for each network)

      genesis = CreateGenesisBlock(1231006505, 2083236893, 0x1d00ffff, 1, 50 * COIN);

Other Bitcoin clients might code or encode it differently, though with the same resultant value.

e.g.

static const string genesis58 = "mgcrgiW4evD3ZVy2KPcG6GJrbUKSWMU22qPURoShM44B9iZpzAqDN"
genesis = Base58.Decode(genesis58)

Then you could more accurately say the genesis block is statically encoded.

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† Note that 'coded' means different things in the worlds of cryptography and programming.
‡ Ditto 'encoded'.