Chapter 3
Building Blocks: The Transaction’s Journey to the Blockchain
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding the cryptocurrency network
Defining different types of nodes on the network
Learning about transaction fees and change addresses
Requesting that the blockchain adds your transaction
Verifying transactions and blocks of transactions
At one end, you’ve got your wallet or your node software. At the other, there’s the blockchain. In between is the network of peer-to-peer nodes and miners creating blocks in the chain. How does a transaction that you set up on your wallet program find its way into the blockchain?
In this chapter, we look at how a transaction leaves your wallet and ends up in the blockchain and the miner’s role in that process. As an example, we use Bitcoin, the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency. Other cryptocurrencies use a similar process, to varying degrees. Each has its own particulars, but understanding how Bitcoin works will give you a really good foundation.
Get Cryptocurrency Mining For Dummies, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.