Crypto Academy Season 5 - Homework Post for Task 3 | The Genesis Block: by @graceyjossy
QUESTION NO 1.
A. WHAT IS THE GENESIS BLOCK?
B. WHAT ARE THE SIGNIFICANCES OF THE GENESIS BLOCK?
C. EXPLORE THE BITCOIN GENESIS BLOCK AND INDICATE HOW MANY TRANSACTIONS SO FAR AND THE NUMBER OF BITCOINS.
INTRODUCTION
Special greetings to the great minds on the Steemit platform. In my article today I'll be sharing with you my understanding of the Genesis Block. What it means, its significance, and how to explore the block called 'the bitcoin genesis block.
There is always an origin to almost everything, the starting point or origin, or the point where something was launched, in this case, the 'Genesis Blockchain' of the cryptocurrency industry, where ideas were evolved into reality.
WHAT IS THE GENESIS BLOCK?
Before I will go straight to defining what a Genesis block is, I will first define the words one after the other. This will further give us a clear understanding of the main word 'Genesis block'.
Genesis is known as the beginning, origin or starting point of something regarding the Bible.
Block is defined as a compartment of solid material for a purpose.
Guiding through with the above definitions, I will therefore define the Genesis Block as the foundation, starting point, origin or beginning of all blockchains. Genesis block has no pre-existing block before it and is thus referred to as Block 0 or Block 1 (which is dependent on the blockchain) because It is known as the main ancestors or first block that was created of every other block on the Bitcoin Blockchain.
Bitcoin Genesis Block was created and mined on the 3rd day of January 2009 by the developer of Blockchain technology with a pseudo name known as Satoshi Nakamoto which is yet to be ascertained if it is an individual or a group.
The Genesis block stands out among other blocks because it determines the hashing of other blocks and therefore dictates the process of confirming bitcoin transactions, and it is behind the existence of new bitcoins.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Genesis Block is named block 0 or block 1 of Bitcoin. The first bitcoin ever mined.
The genesis block was created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.
The Genesis Block is the foundation of the Bitcoin trading system and is the ancestor of all other blocks in the Bitcoin blockchain.
WHAT ARE THE SIGNIFICANCES OF THE GENESIS BLOCK?
The Genesis block has immensely impacted the world right from its time of mining and to date, setting different proceedings in motion. I will, therefore, share the various features or significance of the Genesis block below.
It is the ancestor of the Bitcoin Blockchain.
The genesis block is the ancestor of all other blocks that can ever be produced on the bitcoin blockchain. Just like a gene, the Genesis block determines the characteristics or features of subsequent blocks on the blockchain, determining how every block will be formed in the bitcoin blockchain.Guide for structuring subsequent blocks
The orderliness and arrangement of the Genesis block will determine the arrangement of subsequent blocks because it is the foundation of other blocks. It can be called a Reference block too.Discharging of middlemen
Before the development of the Genesis block, people go through middlemen to perform their financial transactions. But the creation of Genesis block overrode the expensive and strenuous procedure to perform a financial transaction. The elimination of middlemen has resulted in very high transparency in transactions, faster transactions, and lesser cost. The blockchain ushered us into a new era in Finance and the worlds' economy.Popularized the Blockchain Technology
The ideas of blockchain technology dated right back to the 90s had slowed down but with the development of the Genesis block, the entire digital cash system on blockchain by cryptocurrencies was awakened. The importance and impact of blockchain technology are now felt and heard all over the world in every corner of industries and different sectors to enhance their output. The use of blockchain technology has greatly enhanced the circulation of money even to the most underdeveloped areas of the world.
KEY TAKEAWAY
If not for the Genesis Block, it would be very difficult for the miners to trust a blockchain and to know when and how it started. This would be very impractical.
Explore the Bitcoin Genesis block and indicate how many transactions so far and the number of bitcoins.
- To explore the Bitcoin Genesis Block, I first used the block explorer official website (https://www.blockchain.com/explorer) and pasted the address 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f.
When I pasted the above and clicked searched, the
Genesis block will display on the page, showing as Block 0.
Immediately I opened the # Block 0, I saw a brief description of the block. The information gotten are; the time and day it was mined, the exact amount mined (50BTC), also showing the USD net worth of the 50BTC, with regarding the market value of BTC today which is $3,246,286.50.
Scrowing down the page I can see the following;
- Hash address = 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f
- Number of confirmations which is 709,316
- The time and date of the minted block = 2009-01-03 19:15
- The height of the block which = 0, Number of transactions = 1. This is because it is known that the 50BTC that was mined was moved to an inaccessible address.
Block Transaction:
- The hash of the transfer that was made = 4a5e1e4baab89f3a32518a88c31bc87f618f76673e2cc77ab2127b7afdeda33b
- The Wallet address where the coins were sent = 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
I viewed the WALLET address where the first BTC was sent, by clicking on the address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
The address has a Total number of 3,111 transactions and a total of 68.52395424 BTC amounting to $4,446,788.00 as at the time of this post.
From the image above, the last transaction that was sent to this block was yesterday the 2021-11-11 17:24 and 0.00001537 BTC was sent.
These transactions are carried out by miners as a form of tribute or salutation to Satoshi Nakamoto.
CONCLUSION
Although the founder of the Genesis Bitcoin block ( Block 0) is yet unknown, from the lecture by Professor @awesononso I will confidently say it is a turning point or landmark in the technological, by paving an entirely new way for future technologies to flourish on. The Genesis block served as a light to a new technology used around the world, especially in the financial system by giving it a cashless and decentralized face when most needed. The Genesis Block has given miners confidence to trust a blockchain.
Thanks, prof @awesononso for the educative lesson.