Steemit crypto academy season 3 week 2| The Genesis Block| The beginning of the beginning| done by @phenomenal1052 for professor @awesononso
Good day professor @awesomenonso, a big congratulations for your appointment. Am happy to read and study this amazing lecture, and most importantly partake in your homework.
Screenshot from professor post
What is the Genesis Block of a Blockchain?
I would like to start by sharing my knowledge on what a block and blockchain means.
A block can simply defined as a digital file where transaction history, data, records of a network are permanently stored. A block cannot be hacked, edited, or deleted.
A blockchain is the collection of blocks stored with transaction records of a network. A new block is created after a block is completed, these blocks preceed each other to form a chain called BLOCKCHAIN.
Now back to the question
what is Genesis Block of a Blockchain?
The Genesis Block is the name given to the first block of a Cryptocurrency ever mined. The Genesis block is the first block in any network, it is the pillar on which new blocks are created and added to form a blockchain.
The Genesis block is like the ancestor of other blocks, it is the very first block of a network, this is where every other blocks can be traced to, because it proceed every other blocks.
The Genesis block is also called the “BLOCK 0” The first ever block created in the Cryptocurrency world was created in 2009 by the anonymous Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, the block reward was 50BTC, and the reward was made untradeable.
Write on the Bitcoin Genesis Block and its significance.
Bitcoin is the first Cryptocurrency ever created. Bitcoin came into existence in 2008 during the great financial crisis that shook the whole financial system, this caused for the clamouring for a decentralized financial system.
Satoshi Nakamoto introduce Bitcoin to eliminate the centralized system of payment and over reliance on banks as intermediaries that can influence the financial system.
On January 3 2009 Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first ever Bitcoin block, known as the Bitcoin Genesis Block, it is also called Block 0.
Block 0 is the ancestor and the root where every other Bitcoin block can be traced back to.
Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block, and the reward then was 50BTC, and the Block 1 was mined 6 days later.
The is the hash rate used in mining the Genesis Block “000000000019d6689C085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f”
The coins were sent to this address 1A1zp1ep5QGefi2DMPTfTL5slmu7DivfNG these coins was made untradeable and untouchable by Nakamoto.
These address has 68.4 BTC instead of the 50 BTC, this is because Bitcoin miners usually send some Bitcoin to the wallet as a thank you to Satoshi Nakamoto for creating Bitcoin. There are 2945 transactions from different miners in the address.
Source
Mining the Bitcoin Genesis Block was much easier than today because there were not competitor unlike today and the difficulty of solving the hash rate was easier than today.
The reward for the Genesis Block was 50 BTC, while the reward now is 6.25 BTC.
There were some controversy on why the Block 1 took 6 days after the creation of the Genesis Block to create, when the normal time should be 10 minutes.
There are different theories on why it took that long, some say that Nakamoto decided to check the system and do some updates before mining the new Block.
Some religious people believe that he wanted to recreate the world creation ideology of 6 days.
These are not the actual reason, but just people's opinion.
Significance of the Bitcoin Genesis Block.
FIRST OF ITS KIND
The Bitcoin Genesis Block is the first block mined, so it's set the pace and how it should be done. It shows how records of transaction should be stored and it is like a mirror for other block in the Blockchain .
It set the order for creating and storing other blocks in the block. For a new block to be mined, it must met the Genesis Block 0 standard.
Creation of Cryptocurrency
The financial crisis in 2008 led to the idea of Cryptocurrency and the first Cryptocurrency which was Bitcoin was created on the 3rd of January 2009 when the Genesis block 0 was mined, this great achievement led to the creation of Bitcoin and now tens of thousands of Cryptocurrencies. This all began from the first Genesis block mined.
Evolution of Cryptocurrency
The Genesis block can be credited for setting the pace and leading the race for the evolution of Cryptocurrency in our day to day transactions. It was the start of the evolution of Cryptocurrency in eliminating the centralized system and the use of banks as intermediaries in transactions. Now Cryptocurrency is being accepted as a legal tender in some part of the world and soon it will be accepted all over the world.
Go to https://steemworld.org and locate the Steem Genesis Block (You must provide screenshots and sign in as proof of completion).
Steem Genesis Block
steem also has its own Genesis block it is referred to as Block 1. It was created on the 24th of March, 2016.
The Steem Genesis Block can be found on https://steemworld.org.
visit the site https://steemworld.org
- Click on Block Explorer.
Click Ok for Block 1
After that, i was able to see the details of steem Genesis block. So i signed in
Conclusion
The Genesis block was a great achievement and still is today. It paved the way and set the pace for the current evolution of Cryptocurrency and the journey to a safer, faster, and less transaction fee in the world today.
Am sure whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, and whereever he his, he will surely be happy and proud of his work today.
Cc. @Awesononso