The Chaincode Podcast

Chaincode Decoded: Blockchain - Episode 14

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In this Chaincode Decoded segment we talk about the fundamental role of Bitcoin's blockchain and some of its peculiarities.


We discuss:

  • Purpose of the blockchain (0:40)

  • Mining is a lottery, not a race (1:57)

  • Why doesn't the same miner always win? (5:12)

  • What happens if two blocks are found at the same height? (6:12)

  • The longest reorgs (9:11)
  • How does the blockchain work? (12:18)
    •  - Headers-first synchronization and Ultraprune: Episode 1 with Pieter Wuille
     - Episode 5: The UTXO set
  • Why does Bitcoin converge on one chain? (15:20)
    •  - Selfish mining paper: Majority is not Enough: Bitcoin Mining is Vulnerable
  • Will we always find a new block? (18:04)
    •  - Entropy sources in the block header
  • Mining pools have disjoint hashing spaces (19:30)
    •  - Correction: mining pools do not have a separate pay-out address for each participant, but give out a unique coinbase transaction stub for each.
     - Eschaton block

    Thanks to Caralie for the sound engineering.

    ...more
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    The Chaincode PodcastBy Chaincode Labs
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