The Blocks and the Chain
Explore the fundamental components of a blockchain, including the world state and the blockchain ledger. Understand how blocks are structured with headers, data, and metadata, and how their hashes link blocks in a chain. Discover how transactions update the world state while the blockchain remains permanent. Learn how these elements work together to ensure blockchain immutability and consistency.
We'll cover the following...
In this lesson, we’ll learn the logical components of a blockchain and how they work together in a complex but fascinating and precise way.
A blockchain deals with two types of data:
Permanent data (that can never be changed).
Ephemeral data (that can be changed).
This is the principal distinction between the two parts that consitute a blockchain ledger:
The world state (ephemeral).
The blockchain (permanent).
Let’s look at these two components in detail to understand how they are so closely related.
The world state
A status is a mapping between a label and some data. We refer to the label as the key and the associated data as the value. In a distributed ledger, a key identifies an account and the value is a set of information tied to that account. ...