Author: Matthew Mitchell 2012-09-13 15:46:21
Published on: 2012-09-13T15:46:21+00:00
In an email exchange in 2012, Gregory Maxwell questioned the usefulness of tree level in Bitcoin. He asked how it is beneficial to anyone and why not just get ranges from the lowest level if one wants only parts of the transaction list. The response to this query was that obtaining a particular tree level allows verifying segments without downloading all the transaction hashes first. This means that only one hash per segment is needed. For example, if there is a requirement to divide the block into eight segments, specifying level 3 and downloading eight hashes would suffice. However, downloading all transaction hashes would work as well, but it will require more data transfer for the hashes. The use of merkle trees in Bitcoin was to avoid needing all hashes to verify data. It is considered an efficient way of verifying the integrity of large sets of data with minimal computational resources. Merkle trees allow for quick verification of whether any data element belongs to a given set or not. Thus, it is a crucial component of the Bitcoin protocol.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T07:11:34.568324+00:00