Welcome back, we start right where we left off with blocks, and for those who are following Ethereum 2.0, I would recommend reading this, article. For this section about Blocks Part 3, we cover:
- Quick review
- Block Number
- Block difficulty
- Block Nonce
- Summary
- Next
Quick Review:
As a regular practice in this series, a quick overview
Block Number:
In Chapter-8, we discussed Ethereum Blocks; in this chapter, we will talk a little bit about Block Number or Block Height. Block number in the Ethereum domain is the number that represents the length of the blockchain starting from the Genesis Block. Genesis’s Block has the value 0 for the number field, at the time of this writing this article the Block# is 14069298, have a look at the simple blockchain below.
Block Difficulty:
Now that we have a little bit of understanding of what Blocks are, we can now explore what Block difficulty is. Network difficulty shows how many times on average miners should calculate a hash function to find a block. Ethereum difficulty (or network difficulty) is a key value for every cryptocurrency. Ethereum Network difficulty is the difficulty of a problem that miners must solve to find a block. The more miners are mining Ethereum the more difficult it is to find the block to be rewarded. This block's difficulty is a quantity calculated from the previous block’s difficulty and its timestamp.
As more hashing power is added to the Ethereum mining network, the difficulty must increase to ensure blocks are not being generated too quickly. In order for the blocks to be generated consistently, the difficulty must be increased or decreased, this is called a difficulty re-target
Block. Almost all Cryptocurrency projects have a “Genesis” synonym to the Beginning, let us recall that Ethereum is a World state+Virtual machine and state 0 is the Genesis State, which has a pre-defined set of values as agreed upon by all participants within the Ethereum ecosystem. Ethereum Yellow paper defines the preset values of the Genesis Block.
Block Nonce:
Nonce stands for “Number only used once”
Nonce stands for “number only used once,” which is a number added to a hashed — or encrypted — block in a blockchain that, when rehashed, meets the difficulty level restrictions. The nonce is the number that blockchain miners are solving for, in order to receive cryptocurrency.
On Ethereum, each block has a nonce for the block, which is similar to what we have been introduced to in Bitcoin. There is also a nonce for every transaction (in external accounts). The nonce is the number of transactions made or sent from a given address. Whenever you send a transaction the nonce is incremented by one. The reason for a nonce in a transaction is to ensure:
Summary:
- Block Number represents the length of Blockchain.
- Network difficulty is the difficulty of a problem that miners must solve to find a block.
- Block Nonce stands for “Number only used once”
- A Genesis Block is the Block 0 state of the Blockchain.
- Genesis Block has pre-defined values, agreed by the ecosystem.
Next:
In the next section, We will explore Transactions, till then keep on learning.
References:
https://tjayrush.medium.com/its-not-that-difficult-33a428c3c2c3
