The primary goal of this chapter is to clearly explain how blocks are mined in a blockchain. Indirectly, this explains how new currency comes into being, as well as how disparate people forming a network can all reach consensus (agree on the state of the blockchain). And so, you’ll leave this chapter with a practical understanding of Proof of Work—the protocol which achieves this.
We’ll also see that due to the peer-to-peer, decentralized nature of peer-to-peer networks, there is never one single blockchain at any given time. There are many valid chains at once, but over time, ...
