How the network works
The term "decentralized" as used in blockchain means that there is no specific administrator.
On the flip side, this means that there are many unspecified administrators.
This unspecified number of administrators is called a node.
In this section, we will study the operation of nodes in the blockchain as the third mechanism to realize Bitcoin.
In a blockchain network, all nodes perform the same operation.
- A newly generated transaction is shared among all nodes
- Each node begins to incorporate the received transaction into a new block.
- Each node starts PoW (start looking for nonce)
- When the PoW is over, a block is formed and the block is shared with all nodes. 5
- Each node verifies that all transactions in the received block are correct
- Each node begins to incorporate the hash value of the approved block into the next block
At this point, the possibility exists that some nodes may share several different blocks.
Therefore, each node will hold all the blocks it has received once, and after a certain amount of time, it will continue to hold only the blocks that are connected to the longest chain.
This phenomenon can occur even when there are no illegal blocks.
This can happen even in the absence of fraudulent blocks, since all nodes will be PoWing at the same time, and thus multiple blocks will be formed with a small time difference.
In short, the resulting blockchain is branching into several chains while the latest block is being generated, although the longest one is chosen as the correct one.
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