The Genesis Block - Steemit Crypto Academy Season 4 - Homework Post for @awesononso Task 3
1a) What is the Genesis Block?
b) What are the benefits of the Genesis Block?
c) implement the Bitcoin Genesis block and indicate how many transactions can be achieved.
What is the Genesis Block?
The Genesis Block is the first-ever block that is mined in a blockchain system. Before the installment of this block, no other block has been mined before it. It is the foundation upon which other blocks are created in a blockchain. Other blocks in the blockchain follow the pattern in which the genesis block is formed. A cryptography hash is used to link the blocks in the blockchain together, however, a genesis block being the first block is not linked to any other block. The linkage starts from the genesis block up to the current block that is mined.
It is a block that signifies the start of a new blockchain network. It contains only information about transactions that happened as the block was created. It has a hash that is given to it to make the block immutable and that can be placed on the next block created. It is also the start of the distribution of a blockchain cryptocurrency. Because when the genesis block is mined, the miner of the block is rewarded in the blockchain cryptocurrency.
Depending on the blockchain network, the genesis block is given as Block 0 or Block 1. This is known as the block height and it's used to indicate the number of blocks created. Because a genesis block is the first block it is given either block 0 or blocks 1. Subsequent blocks after the genesis block are given higher figures next to block. For instance, the second block on a blockchain network is given as block 1 or block 2, depending on the network. The figure next to the block is called a block height number.
Example of a Genesis Block
An example of a genesis block is the Tron genesis block. The image above gives details of the first block created on the Tron blockchain. It shows Block Height which is 0 and the hash of the block. The hash given is 00000000000000001ebf88508a03865c71d452e25f4d51194196a1d22b6653dc. It is seen that on the 25th of June, 2018, the genesis block in Tron's network was created. This is indicated on the Time. Other important information about the block is displayed too.
What are the are the benefits of the Genesis Block?
The advent of blockchain technology has had an instant impact on the real world. This was made possible through the genesis block. Since the first-ever genesis block (Bitcoin) was created, successive genesis blocks have been created. The genesis block also affects the way a blockchain network behaves. These are the signs of the genesis block.
1. The Genesis Block measures the orderliness of a blockchain network. It stores data in a certain way that subsequent blocks have to follow. It is the model that other blocks on the chain must follow. The contents on the genesis block are arranged in a systematic order and become the criteria that new blocks that are mined must follow.
2. A new dawn for blockchain technology. Blockchain technology was first introduced in 1991 by two researchers who created a system that would timestamp documents. These timestamps cannot be tampered with when executed. But it was not until the first genesis block (Bitcoin), that real-world uses of blockchain became apparent. The event of the first genesis block paved the way for new blockchain networks to be created as new doors of possibilities for a blockchain use case in the real world was opened. Blockchain technology is now being used to solve problems in different areas of life such as finance, health, politics, and currencies (crypto), etc.
3. The start of a new form of currency–Cryptocurrency. The first genesis block created a new form of currency, Bitcoin. By mining the genesis block, the miner of the first genesis block was rewarded with a cryptocurrency, which is Bitcoin. As a result of this, other types of cryptocurrencies have been created.
The image above gives a detailed view of the number of cryptocurrencies making headway. Courtesy of coinmarketcap.com, there are up to 12,137 cryptocurrencies that have been created. These cryptocurrencies are listed according to their rank based on their market cap in the market.
Explore the Bitcoin Genesis block and indicate how many transactions so far and the number of bitcoins.
The image above is the Bitcoin genesis block from the block explorer on blockchain.com. Exploring the Bitcoin genesis block, there is different information that is found on the genesis block. One of them is the Number of Transactions which is equal to 1. It is 1 because the only transaction that took place is the mining reward (block reward) that was given to the miner of the block.
To get the Number of Bitcoins (BTC), it is the addition of the amount of BTC found in Transaction Volume, Block Reward, and Fee Reward. Since this is the genesis block, there is no transaction volume and no fee reward. Hence no figure in the transaction volume and fee reward. Therefore the number of Bitcoins is 50 BTC.
In other words, the only transaction that took place is the block reward that was given to the miner of this block. The reward was sent to the wallet address of the miner of this block.