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Blockchain

A type of distributed ledger software built to act as an immutable source of truth for a set of parties who do not trust each other. Blockchains keep track of data by maintaining a sequence of data blocks each containing a cryptographic hash of the prior block, thus forming a “chain”. Data can be added to the chain by submitting it through computers running the blockchain’s node software. A copy of the blockchain data is stored in every server running a blockchain node so that each of them can independently verify its contents. This ensures consistency and provides the blockchain with a high degree of transparency, redundancy, and reslience in the event of outages. The exact procedure by which the nodes agree on the data is referred to as that blockchain’s consensus algorithm (aka consensus mechanism).

Blockchain diagram

Blocks

A unit of data containing a unique hash, a pointer to the hash of the previous block, and some data. Blocks are shared amongst peers of a blockchain network.

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