Episode 6: Divide and conquer

Combining transactions into blocks

Now that everyone keeps a list of all orders at The Blockchain Bar, how can our friends make sure to detect errors quickly and make it easy to correct them?

Carol detects an error in her list. She says: “Bob, my list is shorter than yours, there must be something wrong!”

Bob replies totally annoyed: “Oh no! Now we have to go back and compare all those pages. Isn’t there a better way?”

Alice smiles: “Easy! Let’s compare the list every time we reach the end of a page. Then potential errors can only be on that current page. If everything is correct, we’ll hand out all drinks ordered on that page.”

In blockchain systems, transactions are also grouped into “pages”, which are called “blocks”. From time to time, all computers compare their current block with each other, agree on the correct version and start a new one.

Do they really need to compare the pages line by line to detect an error? Find out in the following episodes …

Or maybe you first want to read more about block building on TheBlockchainBar.com.

Nacatmoto’s Lesson #6: Blocks of transactions

The story of Blockruption’s Blockchain Bar began in June 2018, when Martin Breitsprecher and Collin Müller sat in a restaurant in the port of Hamburg. For a long time, they had been trying several approaches of explaining the blockchain to non-nerds. While joking around, they discovered that almost any blockchain concept can be explained with a hypothetical bar that is run by the guests themselves in a beer-to-beer … uh … peer-to-peer fashion.

The Blockchain Bar

In our 'Bar', you can learn about all important concepts of blockchain technology. The guests run it themselves as a 'beer-to-beer' collective without a barkeeper. Each episode explains one concept in simple terms for beginners.

Martin Breitsprecher

Written by

Digital entrepreneur, strategy consultant, blockchain expert

The Blockchain Bar

In our 'Bar', you can learn about all important concepts of blockchain technology. The guests run it themselves as a 'beer-to-beer' collective without a barkeeper. Each episode explains one concept in simple terms for beginners.

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