January 2019
Beginner to intermediate
372 pages
11h 17m
English
Content preview from Foundations of Blockchain
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
Start your free trial
Mining a block using the Proof of Work algorithm
The Proof of Work algorithm is used in Bitcoin to achieve consensus in the Bitcoin network about the blocks that belong to the blockchain. It helps to achieve consistency of data in the ledger among the nodes in the network. The Proof of Work algorithm creates proof that a certain amount of work has been done to create the block.
Bitcoin's Proof of Work is a hash puzzle that uses the SHA256 hash function to find the required hash value and thus solve the puzzle. The Proof of Work algorithm used in Bitcoin is similar to the one explained in Chapter 3, Cryptography in Blockchain. You can refer to Chapter 3, Cryptography in Blockchain, for more details regarding the implementation and analysis ...