Build a quick and simple blockchain in Python
What exactly is a blockchain? The best way to understand it is to see one in action , or better yet, to build one. Essentially a blockchain is a way to store data with its history — and a blockchain can be built in any programming language.
I played around with coding a blockchain when I wrote this piece about it being the data innovation showing the value of data lineage. If you’re interested in the background of blockchain and what it has to do with Bitcoin then that’s a good place to start.
Ok, enough talk — here’s the code, step-by-step in Python. To keep it simple we’ll code the blockchain to print to the terminal and I’ll explain each step so you don’t need to know Python to follow along.
If you don’t have Python set up then you can run the steps in an online Python session → here
Step 1 / Put Some Data in a Block
The starting point for a blockchain is actually simple.
A blockchain has blocks like this:
[ ]
With data in them:
[ data ]
