Blocks and the Blockchain
Each DeFiChain block consists of
- a block header: contains metadata about the block and its contents and links to previous block
- a body: contains a list of transactions in that block.
Blocks are identified by their SHA256 hashes.
Block header
The header format of DeFiChain blocks is as follows. The implementation of the block header can be found in the class CBlockHeader in file src/primitives/block.h.
| Name | Data Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| nVersion | int32_t | Used to create and accept soft forks. Usually 536870912. For details on how nVersion is processed and used, read BIP9. |
| hashPrevBlock | uint256 | Double SHA256 hash of previous block header. |
| hashMerkleRoot | uint256 | Double SHA256 hash of merkle root of transaction merkle tree. |
| nTime | uint32_t | Unix time of when the miner started hashing the header (according to the miner). Must be strictly greater than the median time of the previous 11 blocks. |
| nBits | uint32_t | Used for PoS mining. An encoded version of the target threshold this block’s header hash must be less than or equal to. |
| uint64_t | [*No longer in use] Block height of the current block. Block height is tracked by CBlockIndex instead of block headers themselves, this remains in the block header for compatibility with previous versions of the node. Removal of this field would require a hard fork. | |
| mintedBlocks | uint64_t | Number of blocks this masternode has mined. |
| stakeModifier | uint256 | A stake modifier is a collective source of random entropy for PoS mining. It is equal to SHA256({previous stake modifier}, {masternode ID}). |
| sig | vector | Signed digest block header using miner's public key. |
Block Body
The block body consists of
- a list of pointers which map to transactions
- a local variable
fChecked(not shared between nodes) to track if the block has been successfully validated previously
The list of transactions has type vector<CTransactionRef>, and each CTransactionRef points to a CTransaction. The contents of each Transaction as well as the different types of Transactions are detailed in the Transactions document.