Linked Questions
62
votes
6
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What is the Merkle root?
The Bitcoin wiki Vocabulary article explains why the Merkle root exists:
Every transaction has a hash associated with it. In a block, all of
the transaction hashes in the block are themselves ...
- 11.9k
38
votes
2
answers
14k
views
What is the coinbase?
I searched the bitcoin wiki and found references to coinbase, but no clear cut explanation of what exactly it is. I know that miners can tag their coinbases (that is how some sites tell who mined a ...
- 681
14
votes
5
answers
6k
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Why didn't Satoshi make the nonce space larger?
I know Satoshi isn't around to ask anymore, so this might be futile to ask, but I'm hoping someone might have some insight about this.
Bitcoin mining typically utilizes an extraNonce (bnExtraNonce ...
- 14.2k
16
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How can we be sure that a new block will be found?
How do we know the HASH function will produce an output that fulfills the difficulty, i.e. is below 0000...xxxx...xxx?
Is it possible that no proof will be found so that the HASH will produce that ...
- 261
16
votes
1
answer
6k
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What is NTime rolling/nonce range? And what miners support it?
From Slush's pool's homepage:
Pool now supports Long polling and NTime rolling. Older miners have many problems with those new features, which can negatively affect your rewards. Please update your ...
- 1,740
5
votes
2
answers
2k
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Which block header fields are miners able to change in an effort to avoid having to recalculate the Merkle Root?
In addition to the nonce and the Merkle Root, there are 4 other fields in the header - version, previous header hash, time and nbits.
Assuming a miner does not want to change the merkle root because ...
- 390
4
votes
1
answer
868
views
In Bitcoin, what happens if there is no viable nonce?
I'm assuming SHA is perfectly uniform.
In bitcoin, there are $2^{32}$ possible inputs per block, which are mapped to $2^{256}$ possible outputs. So there is a $1/2^{224}$ chance that any randomly ...
- 143
1
vote
1
answer
669
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If a lot of miners start at nonce 0, how are there no ties?
I understand what happens with ties (in the long term, the longest chain wins), however, if a majority of miners start with a nonce of zero, does it just matter who has the fastest hardware, or is ...
- 123
1
vote
1
answer
771
views
How does Bitcoin transmit transactions?
What is the underlying mechanism?
Do you transmit a message to a local node who then relays it? How does that relay work? I know about DNS seeding but then how does the rest of the relaying occur? If ...
- 11
1
vote
2
answers
348
views
How do transaction verification and adding a block to the blockchain fit together?
I have the below questions:
How is a transaction added to a block?
Do miners get a reward for adding a transaction to a block?
How is that block then added to the blockchain?
If everyone (miners) are ...
3
votes
1
answer
429
views
Transaction inclusion into block
What are reliable and good sources for understanding the procedure of transaction inclusion into a block?
Problem outline:
Given, there are multiple peers - let's say 5 - in a test network, where 3 ...
- 1,679
0
votes
1
answer
233
views
What parts of a block, other than the nonce, can a miner vary
What are the list of all the variables whose values that the miner can cycle or modify to get a valid hash for this block (with very high probability) ? The only one I am aware of is:
Nonce - 4 Bytes....
- 127
2
votes
1
answer
76
views
What are the exact degrees of freedom in finding a valid block?
I am working on an educational project for bitcoin mining. I searched as much as I could but still haven't understood the following questions:
What are the "exact" degrees of freedom in ...
- 21
0
votes
0
answers
50
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Valid block header versions bits
I am currently trying to learn what values miners can adjust in the block headers when hashing them. I see that the version number is routinely changed to some random bit string (which seems a bit odd ...
- 101