It’s another week and I am pleased to be part of @awesononso class. This lecture was great.

S

Genesis from the bible as we all know which talks about the beginning of the world. How God anticipated and thought of bringing people into the world to make t productive. That’s what idea the Genesis block also talks about.

The genesis block is the beginning of the Proof of Work blockchain system which started when Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym programmer created the Genesis Block. Blockchain is a series of blocks that are chained with information linked to one another. The first block which started this chain was the Genesis block which simply means “The beginning Block”. The information these blocks stores are transactions of which each Block has a unique header. When a block is filled up, it gives way to the next block to store the next data. The information stored in these blocks is permanently stored and can never be changed. Blocks are identified by the block header harsh since each header is unique. Not forgetting that the Genesis block is also known as Block 0.

The lower block is connected to the next and they share information in that order. From block 0, block 1 follows and it keeps following that other. This causes the blockchain to keep growing in height till the end of the blockchain. This arrangement of blockchain technology keeps cryptocurrencies secured. Since the Genesis block was the first, it is now a template for other blocks in the blockchain.

Bitcoin Genesis Block

S

On January 3, 2009, the Bitcoin blockchain came into exitance. It was created by Satoshi Nakamoto and there have been about 600,000 blocks minded into existence. The Genesis block of bitcoin is special and it has few unique features compared to the followed blocks. It took Nakamoto 10 minutes to create the Genesis block.

The Genesis block was released with 50 BTC which is untradable. It also came with a message saying "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks". No one really understands the message as Nakamoto never clarified the meaning of the message. Though many have given their thoughts that maybe Nakamoto developed Bitcoin to seize banks and corrupt middlemen by creating a more people-driven currency, it's still unclarified to date.

The identity of Nakamoto and the origin of the Genesis block have been a mystery. Not only that, questions like why the bitcoins in the Genesis block remain untradeable, why followed blocks took six days to mine, and why people still make trades into the Genesis block.

Significance of Bitcoin Genesis Block

1. It serves as a template for other cryptocurrencies. There should be a starting point or what one should look at to develop a currency in the blockchain. the Bitcoin Genesis block have served that purpose and have made it easier for the creation of now currencies. As we speak today, there are about 9000+ currencies in the blockchain.
2. Without Bitcoin Genesis block, it would have been difficult for miners to trust a blockchain. Nakamoto after the creation of the Genesis block of bitcoin, it exposed the idea of which blockchain functions with. The people got the understanding that, and that was the beginning of trust in blockchain. This helped miners to have a starting point that everyone trusted.
3. Bitcoin Genesis block employed the use of decentralized systems. This means Bitcoin Genesis block gave birth to decentralization in blockchain. Today as we speak decentralization is well know in blockchain because the Genesis block of Bitcoin was decentralized and almost all cryptocurrencies used the Genesis block of Bitcoin as a template.

Steemit Genesis block.

Steemit also has its genesis block which can be accessed at steemworld.com
To access that,

Open steemworld.org in your browser.

On the homepage, locate the sign-in bottom and sign in with your username and posting key

You will see your username at the top if you have successfully logged in.

Click on Block explorer

Enter the block number you wish to Access. We want to access the Genesis block which has a block number of 1

We wait as the genesis block load.

We can now see the details of the Genesis block of steemit!

Conclusion

The Genesis Block is really a great foundation in the blockchain world. All this credit goes to our Satoshi Nakamoto for giving us a beginning in the blockchain.

Bitcoin genesis have done much for blockchain. Its importances cant be measured.

I hope you saw the steemit Genesis block too, its great to have been part of this lecture.

Thanks for passing by!