Steemit Crypto Academy Season 3 Week 1| The Genesis Block: The Beginning of the Beginning by @jueco
Without much of our time, i will love to attempt this wonderful assignment by providing answers to the questions asked below:
WHAT IS THE GENESIS BLOCK OF A BLOCK CHAIN?
For christains, the word Genesis is a very familiar word, because Genesis is a chapter in their holy book (The Bible).
The book of Genesis is the first chapter in the Bible and it serves as the introductory part of the Bible as it contains the beginning of the creation by God, that is, the things that God created first and what happened in his first six days of creation.
The book of Genesis also told about the lives of the first man and woman to live on earth and it also narrates how the first lie was told.
You would agree with me that Genesis is definitely not a new word to christains as it's contents are mainly the beginning of the beginning of things.
Well, Genesis may be defined as the start, the origin, or the beginning of the existence of something.
Genesis block of a block chain is referred to as the first block of a block chain. It is the block that opened the way to the existence of other blocks in a block chain.
The Genesis block is usually termed block 0 as there is no other block before it, as it is the foundation of other blocks in a block chain.
To understand Genesis block better, let us illustrate it using our numerals (numbers).
As there is no positive number that can be formed before the number zero(0) and there is no negative number that can be formed after the number zero (the number zero is the Genesis, the beginning of all other numbers, be it positive or negative), so it is with the Genesis block of a block chain.
WRITE ON THE BITCOIN GENESIS BLOCK AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE
I will begin to provide answer to this question by first shedding light on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency ever to have existed, it was created on Saturday January 3rd, 2009 with the formation of the very first Bitcoin block.
Bitcoin as the Genesis block of other cryptocurrencies has their transactions linked to it.
Bitcoin Genesis block was the first block mined and mined on the first cryptocurrency. On 9th of January, 2009, Nakamoto Satoshi released the first version of the Bitcoin software which had a reward of 50bitcoins. These first 50btc could not be spent because the system could not find the first 50btc transaction in it's database, and due to this, it's spending transactions were rejected.
I am really amazed at the fact that irrespective of the number of miners of btc, it still takes 10minutes to mine one btc. This implies that the mining of btc is independent on the number of miners, and this takes an average power of 72terawatts.
Since it takes 10minutes to mine a block of btc, six blocks will be mined in an hour and there are 24hours in a day, this implies that the maximum amount of blocks that can be mined in a day is 144blocks.
The Genesis block has received over 1000 transactions since it's existence and random people adding over 14BTC to this unspendable address as an appreciation to Nakamoto Satoshi.
Irrespectively, the supply of Bitcoin is limited to 21million, this means that only 21bitcoin can be mined and once this number has been successfully mined, the supply of btc will be exhausted.
I will also love to mention that the identity of the identity of Bitcoin remains unknown, all we know is the name "NAKAMOTO SATOSHI".
We also don't know if Nakamoto Satoshi is a person or group of persons and we don't know the gender of Nakamoto Satoshi be it a person.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BITCOIN GENESIS BLOCK
To me, the first significance of Bitcoin Genesis block is that it opened the way to the creation and mining of other cryptocurrencies
Due to the foundation of Bitcoin Genesis block, Bitcoin is used as a medium of exchange in some countries.
Bitcoin serves as the foundation of all other cryptocurrencies, their transactions is in one way or the other related to Bitcoin.
GO TO HTTP://STEEMWORLD.ORG AND LOCATE THE STEEM GENESIS BLOCK
*To locate the steem Genesis block, I clicked on https://steemworld.org.
As I clicked on it, I discovered that my account was still signed in due to the fact that I did not sign out the last time I visited the page. For the sake of this wonderful assignment, I had to sign out and then re-sign in
These can be confirmed from the time the screenshot were taken
I then signed in by inputting my steem account name and my private posting keys
Then I clicked on the block explorer
I then inserted 1 since I want to locate steem Genesis block and I clicked on the ok button
And here it is !!! The steem Genesis block
Conclusion
I must confess, this topic is one of it's kind, it is a very unique topic that broadens the idea of one on the Genesis block of a block chain.
This topic have given a broader knowledge on the Genesis block of Bitcoin.
With the help of this topic, I have the opportunity to explore steemworld.com on my own.
I say a big thank you to my able professor @awesononso for this wonderful lecture and may the Almighty continue to strengthen you as you attain greater in the steemit block chain.