Blocks are the building blocks of a blockchain and they have certain characteristics that differentiate them from each other. Learn about them and understand a little more about how all the technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible works.
DSince the creation of technology blockchain, an important part of it has been the types of blocks and their characteristics. This is because blocks are the building blocks of the blockchain's history. Hence the importance of knowing the types of blocks that exist, to be able to identify them successfully and understand their role in blockchain technology.
That is why the following article is dedicated to explaining in a simple way the 3 types of blocks that exist in the different blockchains.
Types of blocks in blockchain
Genesis block
Un genesis block It comes to be the first block of a blockchain, hence its name because it is the "genesis» of that blockchain. These blocks are the cornerstone of the entire blockchain and the beginning of its future history. The first genesis block of the entire crypto world was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto in creating Bitcoin. This fact was made public the day January 3, 2009, when Nakamoto launched his idea. It had started a global technological revolution, which continues to evolve today.
The existence of the genesis block allows the blockchain to begin to create its history of operations or Transactions. Said foundational block allows the new created block to be associated with a previous state. Through this association, the blockchain can guarantee its immutability. This thanks to the use of technology such as merkle tree. This allows associating the block history with a unique hash attributable to those blocks. Any alteration, no matter how minimal, prevents the verification of the Merkle root (Merke Root) is correct invalidating part or all the history of the blockchain according to the case.
In addition, the genesis block has an important function in allowing the synchronization of the nodes. of the network. Synchronization is only possible when the nodes have the same genesis block in their databases. This ensures that the blockchain's distributed transaction book is the same for everyone, providing security.
In that sense, we can see the genesis block as "The angular stone" of all blockchain technology. Therefore, every blockchain has a genesis block, all of them have this "cornerstone" in its history.
Valid blocks
Valid blocks are all those blocks that have been mined and have been included in the blockchain. To do this, each mined block must pass through the consent from the network and report as a block that has managed to solve the assigned cryptographic puzzle. Once the network has reached consensus, the block is included in the blockchain and propagated by all its nodes. In this way, each node of the network has the new block and serves as a verification point for it.
These blocks are what allow the operation of the blockchain and its transactions. Each valid block carries within it a series of transactions that are validated together with that block. For example in Bitcoin, each valid block carries a average of 2100 transactions in its structure. In this way, each transaction included in the valid block becomes a confirmed transaction. From then on, every valid block added to the blockchain continues to confirm previous transactions. This allows each transaction and block on the network to be fully secured.
Of course, each valid block is accompanied by a data structure that allows this fact to be verified. In the structure is the hash of the block, the Merkle Root, the timestamp, nuncio, the block transaction data and the Coinbase. All this arranged in such a way that each data can be verified publicly.
Orphan blocks
Loose or orphaned blocks are valid blocks that are not part of the blockchain. These usually occur when two miners churn out blocks at almost the same time, or they can be caused by an attacker with sufficient hashing power trying to reverse a transaction. At this time, the network consensus protocol comes into play to decide which block will be validated (included in the chain) and which will be orphaned.
The reality is that the network has programmed that the blockchain will always decide on the longest blockchain. That is, the one that contains more information or processed transactions. This means of protection turns out to be very simple and effective with this problem.
For example, suppose a cybercriminal has decided to attack the Bitcoin network and create a convenient fork. To do this, start mining blocks in order to obtain the compensation of 6,25 BTC of each block. This at the same time, generates a fork of the network that is convenient for it because it will have its new blocks.
This will allow you to make use of the funds you have maliciously obtained later. To achieve this, the attacker only engages in mining raw blocks of network transactions. In this way, each block you mine only has the coinbase and nothing else. The network detects these dual blocks, and checks: Which ones have more information? Which have the most transactions? Here the attacker loses the game, as the network will unequivocally decide on the largest blocks.
Of course, if the attacker reaches obtain more than 50% of the mining power you can reverse this, but you don't need such power to compute an orphan block. It is something that happens all the time and it is the consensus protocols of the network that protect us from them.
Orphan blocks can be tracked in block explorers. For example, Blockchain.com has this interesting functionality.
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