CBGTBT - Part 5 - Blockchains 102
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The document presents an overview of blockchain technology discussed during the #startingblock2015 tour in Europe, highlighting the process of how blocks are created, transmitted, and confirmed in a distributed network. It explains the competition among miners for block creation and addresses the implications of network forks on transaction confirmation. Additionally, it outlines the difference between soft and hard forks related to protocol upgrades in blockchain systems.
CBGTBT - Part 5 - Blockchains 102
- 2. Introduction & Primer First, some context These slides are from the #StartingBlock2015 tour by @blockstrap. 6 European countries in 8 days – (Istanbul, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Prague, Berlin & London). We met lots of great people, answered lots of great questions and had a great time. We look forward to meeting many of them again in the near future. These slides might only make perfect sense if you were at the talks and can remember all the additional points we made whilst discussing the tech. This deck is 5th of 6. Questions? Comments? @MrAdamGiles adam@neuroware.io
- 3. Blockchains 102 Refresher ➔ Blocks store records of transactions ➔ Ordered in time, immutable historical records ➔ Measured in block ‘height’ identified by id (hash of metadata) ➔ Tamper evident through hash of hashes, each block contains hash from the previous block ➔ Blocks are created by Miners ➔ New blocks are added to the chain
- 4. Blockchains 102 But... Like the blockchain miners are distributed, so who gets to make the block?
- 5. Blockchains 102 Simultaneously Broadcasting Blocks ➔ Miners are distributed and are in competition with each other. ➔ First to publish/broadcast a block wins. ➔ At the top of the chain multiple miners could create a block at roughly the same time ➔ Blocks take time to propagate their way round the network ➔ Different nodes will get different blocks at different times ➔ The network needs a way to decide which block it will use as it’s official record of what happened ➔ Mining doesn’t stop while all this is figured out
- 6. Blockchains 102 Recap: How To Build A Block 1. Receive the transaction broadcast 2. Verify the crypto in the transaction 3. Add it to the unconfirmed pool 4. Do some hard maths on all the transactions in the pool 5. Broadcast the Block to the network 6. The Block is added to the blockchain
- 7. ● Pretend the green block is at height 0 ● All miners try to solve the next one… ● A miner solves one at height 1
- 8. ● But so does another miner. We don’t know which is official. ● Block 1a may contain different transactions from 1b. ● We don’t know which is the accepted block yet ● So, mining continues, with half the network working on 2a, half on 2b ● Good idea not to treat any transactions as final yet
- 9. ● A miner finds 2b ● All miners working on 2a stop work, they must work at the highest height ● All miners work on finding a block at height 3 ● Transactions that were only in 1a, are now back to not-being-in-a-block
- 10. ● A miner solves one and broadcasts to the network ● Other miners abandon their work and start trying to solve a block at height 4
- 11. ● A miner solves one at height 4, all is well with the world ● All miners try to solve a block at height 5
- 12. ● But, while this is sorting itself out, another miner solves a block at height 4 ● We now have a fork at height 4. ● Half the miners will try to solve 5a, half will try 5b
- 13. ● We have a race condition, lets pretend that both forks of the chain solve another block at the same time
- 14. ● The miners working on 5b solve a block first. All miners stop what they’re working on, and try to solve for height 7 ● Blocks 4a and 5a are now accepted as the longest chain
- 15. ● Smooth sailing from here on out
- 16. Implications Blockchains 102 ➔ Transactions take time to ‘confirm’ ➔ Each transaction, once it’s in an accepted block has a height ➔ Each increase in blockchain height is called a confirmation ➔ A transaction 5 blocks below the top of the chain is said to have ‘6 confirmations’ ➔ The merchant can decide how many confirmations is sensible to wait for (cup of coffee, perhaps no confirmations; for a meal, 1 or 2 confirmations; for a restaurant at least 6!) ➔ Current default is to wait for 6 confirmations for anything of value
- 17. Other Types Of Fork Blockchains 102 ➔ Upgrades to the protocol can cause problems – but can be managed ➔ Blocks that are created have a version number ➔ New blocks using the new protocol use a different version number ➔ If the upgrade is backwardly compatible, it's a soft fork ➔ If the upgrade isn't backwardly compatible, it's a hard fork ➔ Hard forks are much harder and we try to avoid them
- 18. Any Questions?
Editor's Notes
- #3: Assume familiar with software, just not blockchains Bitcoin can be polizing, quickly decends into conversations/arguments about politics, But as software is eating the workd, that's what we'll be focusing on Simplified first , then circle back round and dive deeper Simplifications can be missleading Tell meif too fast/slow