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A fork occurs when enacting a new set of rules. A hard fork is a permanent change that would not allow for communication with prior bitcoins to occur. A hard fork is a permanent divergence in the blockchain protocol, not backwards compatible, meaning that nodes that have not upgraded can’t validate blocks created by upgraded…

A Bitcoin wallet is a software program where Bitcoins are stored. To be technically accurate, Bitcoins are not stored anywhere; there is a private key (secret number) for every Bitcoin address that is saved in the Bitcoin wallet of the person who owns the balance.

Blocks hold batches of valid transactions that are hashed and encoded into a Merkle tree. Each block includes the cryptographic hash of the prior block in the blockchain, linking the two. The linked blocks form a chain. This iterative process confirms the integrity of the previous block, all the way back to the original genesis…

Block height represents the number of blocks that were confirmed in the entire history of a particular blockchain network – from the genesis block (or block zero) until the most recent one. Unlike the genesis block, all other blocks contain a reference (hash) to the block that came immediately before it, and the block height…

What is a Block Reward? A block reward is the reward a miner gets for solving the cryptographic hashing problem that verifies transactions and adds a new block to the blockchain. This creates incentive for miners to add hash power to the network. For Bitcoin, this block reward is halved every 210,000 blocks created, or…

A blockchain—the technology underlying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—is a shared digital ledger, or a continually updated list of all transactions. This decentralized ledger keeps a record of each transaction that occurs across a fully distributed or peer-to- peer network, either public or private. A blockchain’s integrity hinges on strong cryptography that validates and chains together…

The Bitcoin blockchain relies heavily on cryptography: Hash functions (i.e. SHA256 and RIPEMD-160) and Public Key Cryptography (ECDSA-Elliptic Curve Digital Curve Algorithm).  Block is the data, Chain is the database (public), and cryptography is a protocol or method of protecting private information from unwanted parties.

A blockchain ledger is where details of transactions are recorded after validation. Examples of open and public blockchains are the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks.

An identicon is a visual representation of a hash value, usually of an IP address,  that serves to identify a user of a computer system as a form of avatar while protecting the user’s privacy.  

Similar to an email address used to send an email, a Bitcoin address is an 26-35 alphanumeric string or unique identifier, that can be used to send cryptocurrencies. Cryptography is used in order to generate a Bitcoin address. Digital wallets usually generate a new address for each transaction. A contract address is a unique address…