Grateful for the opportunity to learn with AYAGIGS, I learned a whole lot with the whole team about WEB3 and Blockchain while learning to become a Smart contract engineer. I talked briefly about blockchain here as it is a basic and very important knowledge in this space;

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO BLOCKCHAIN

Blockchain is a decentralized network. Hence, it does not have a central authority responsible for managing and distributing data. Instead, the data is distributed (i.e. duplicated) to the nodes participating in this network.

The participating nodes are the ones who manage a blockchain network. So if any node tries to change the data, then this modification has to be validated by the other nodes and, if the other nodes find out that this modification is incorrect they will reject it.

The word Blockchain refers to a public database for storing real-world data, shared and updated with many nodes (computers) across the globe. In technical terms, a blockchain is a collection of blocks linked to each other.

The word “blockchain” consists of two parts: block and chain.

“Block” is an entity that stores any real-world data. For convenience, let’s assume that a block stores the transactions happening on the internet. If Bada sends 5 ETH (Ethers) to John, this transaction needs to be added to a block to be successful.

“Chain” is a cryptographic link of a block with the previous block. In other words, the link between blocks forms a chain of blocks. So, to sum it up, a blockchain is a collection of blocks chained together using cryptography.

How does blockchain work?

Every blockchain begins with a Genesis Block, and it’s the first block of a blockchain. A Block is limited in size and can store a limited number of transactions.

Let’s assume that we have three blocks with some transactions stored in them. To link these blocks, every block is assigned a unique hash id that is generated using the data present in that block. So when someone tries to modify a Block, that block’s hash id also changes.

Now, the hash id of the first block is stored in the second block. And the hash id of the second block is stored in the third block. This process is repeated for all the subsequent blocks. Thus, we have a chain of blocks referred to as the “blockchain”. By the way, this is what a hash id looks like for “Molly sends 5 ETH to Holly”.848C68F9EDF7EFFDA27005EFD643F785030C77B79E5637D92CB6A7D516A27370"Molly sends 5 ETH to Holly” is an example. In a real-world case scenario, it could be a transaction.