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How Bitcoin’s Public Ledger Is Maintained: Understanding the Hashgraph Architecture
When you start creating a working copy of the Bitcoin protocol, understanding the underlying architecture and storage of the Bitcoin Public Ledger (BLL) is crucial. In this article, we’ll delve into the details of maintaining Bitcoin’s BLL, focusing on the hashgraph consensus mechanism.
What is the Bitcoin Public Ledger?
The Bitcoin Public Ledger is a decentralized, public ledger that records all Bitcoin transactions since the 2009 genesis block. It acts as a distributed database that ensures that every transaction is verified and recorded across the network. The BLL contains a permanent record of all Bitcoin transactions, allowing for secure and transparent tracking of ownership and asset movements.
Hashgraph Consensus Mechanism
Bitcoin’s hashgraph consensus mechanism is a unique way to reach consensus among nodes on the blockchain. Unlike traditional proof-of-work (PoW) or proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols, hashgraph relies on a distributed network of validators to generate a new block and update the ledger.
How Bitcoin’s public ledger is maintained
The BLL is stored in a data structure called an
index, which consists of two main components:
- Index: A binary search tree (BST) that indexes all transactions in the index, allowing for efficient retrieval and manipulation of specific blocks.
- Block: The actual block that contains all transactions in the index.
The index is maintained by a
index node
, which contains pointers to each transaction in the index. Each transaction is represented as a hash of its inputs (e.g. transaction IDs) and outputs (e.g. addresses).
How transactions are stored
BLL transactions follow a specific format:
- Transaction header: The header block contains metadata such as the transaction ID, sender address, recipient address, timestamp, and more.
- Transaction details: The actual details of the transaction (e.g., inputs, outputs).
- Transaction signature: A digital signature created by a node with its public key.
The transaction header is linked to its corresponding block using a hash, creating a blockchain that connects each new block to the previous one in the blockchain.
Hashgraph Consensus
In the hashgraph consensus mechanism, each validator (node) creates and updates a directory as follows:
- New block creation: A validator creates a new block that contains all transactions from its local network.
- Block signing: Each transaction is signed with the validator’s private key.
- Block sending to other nodes: The validator sends the signed block to other nodes in the network.
- Block verification: Other nodes verify the block by checking its consistency with the index and ensuring that all transactions are correctly linked.
Once consensus is reached, each node updates its local index, creating a permanent record of the blockchain.
Conclusion
The Bitcoin Public Ledger’s storage mechanism relies on the hashgraph consensus algorithm to maintain a decentralized and secure network. Understanding how transactions are stored in the BLL and the index/block structure can help you understand the architecture of the Bitcoin protocol. Creating a working replica for an academic project requires a deep dive into the underlying technology and its complexities.
Recommendations for your project
- Learn about the Bitcoin protocol and its various components.
- Explore the hashgraph consensus mechanism in detail, focusing on node communication and data storage.
- Implement a basic directory structure to simulate the BLL index and block storage.