From the course: Practical Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

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Understanding blockchain hashes and identification

Understanding blockchain hashes and identification - Blockchain Tutorial

From the course: Practical Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

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Understanding blockchain hashes and identification

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- Okay, so I've already told you one of the most important things about a block is its own unique identifier or its own hash, as well as having the previous block's own unique identifier or own hash. Let's talk about that in a little bit of a detail. What is a hash? Well, a hash is actually a mathematical function that takes varied sized data, and puts it into a fixed size data. Now a hash is also considered a fingerprint of that data, because it's basically creating a unique combination that only refers to the data that's gone through its own hashing algorithm. I know that's a little confusing, and I'm going to, just bear with me for one second. I'll explain that what it means to you, and show you that as well. Now, just remember there are multiple types of hashing algorithms that are out there that can be used. There are common ones. In the chart below, we're using the hashing algorithm, MD5, which is an extremely popular hashing algorithm. So what the hashing algorithm does is it…

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