Blockchain

The blockchain in Bitcoin is a collection of an ordered lists of blocks that connects the previous block with the hash pointer. Bitcoin uses Google's LevelDB database to store the blockchain metadata. The identity of each block is created by using the SHA256 hash value of the block header, and this block hash is stored in the block header of the next block in the blockchain in order to form a link.

Block structure

The data structure of a Bitcoin block holds a collection of transactions and metadata information about the block. A block is made up of a header and body, which consists of all the transactions. A block holds more than 500 transactions, on average.

Table 5.2 shows all the fields that are included...