Data Properties of Bitcoin Block

Bitcoin Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Notes

∟Data Properties of Bitcoin Block

This section describes data Properties of Bitcoin block.

At a low level, a Bitcoin block has the following data properties expressed in JSON format:

  "hash" : "hash",       (string) the block hash (same as provided)
  "confirmations" : n,   (numeric) The number of confirmations, or -1 if the 
                                   block is not on the main chain
  "size" : n,            (numeric) The block size
  "strippedsize" : n,    (numeric) The block size excluding witness data
  "weight" : n           (numeric) The block weight as defined in BIP 141
  "height" : n,          (numeric) The block height or index
  "version" : n,         (numeric) The block version
  "versionHex" : "00000000", (string) The block version in hexadecimal
  "merkleroot" : "xxxx", (string) The merkle root
  "tx" : [               (array of string) The transaction ids
     "transactionid"     (string) The transaction id
     ,...
  ],
  "time" : ttt,          (numeric) The block time in seconds since epoch 
                                  (Jan 1 1970 GMT)
  "mediantime" : ttt,    (numeric) The median block time in seconds since 
                                   epoch (Jan 1 1970 GMT)
  "nonce" : n,           (numeric) The nonce
  "bits" : "1d00ffff",   (string)  The bits
  "difficulty" : x.xxx,  (numeric) The difficulty
  "chainwork" : "xxxx",  (string) Expected number of hashes required to 
                                  produce the chain up to this block (in hex)
  "previousblockhash" : "hash",  (string) The hash of the previous block
  "nextblockhash" : "hash"       (string) The hash of the next block

Let's take a look at the block # 500 from Bitcoin Test Network:

C:\>\local\bitcoin-0.15.1\bin\bitcoin-cli -testnet getblockhash 500
00000000a2424460c992803ed44cfe0c0333e91af04fde9a6a97b468bf1b5f70

C:\>\local\bitcoin-0.15.1\bin\bitcoin-cli -testnet getblock
   00000000a2424460c992803ed44cfe0c0333e91af04fde9a6a97b468bf1b5f70
   
{
  "hash": "00000000a2424460c992803ed44cfe0c0333e91af04fde9a6a97b468bf1b5f70",
  "confirmations": 748456,
  "strippedsize": 1868,
  "size": 1868,
  "weight": 7472,
  "height": 500,
  "version": 1,
  "versionHex": "00000001",
  "merkleroot": 
     "dd3f288510dd3b632940bd3fb1db162d3ff99b19ddb0c586cfa3ac9a76d42517",
  "tx": [
    "a647d0c4112b4727f3c856782ff6bbaf099be929b27214a8e0dfedee4383eb68", 
    "24b8a4c788b8c805b810438ddd99e569e184ff20f4394ac49a6d832e69f57242", 
    "c5ffd70c3bc4998465cef55ed6d5d831ab3a550406423eb611117ed8ee41c278", 
    "4692772a73ea834c836915089acf97f2c790380a2b8fd32f82729da72545d8c5", 
    "82d6d88081e3e0eb36730f7f3aedb17228142b9e00a6dbaab4b53b798d0742c1", 
    "fc407d7a3b819daa5cf1ecc2c2a4b103c3782104d1425d170993bd534779a0da", 
    "95ad3ffb2a9426d6f5f5b97a134d90153ae16c9375f74eb385f481cff2771d77"
  ],
  "time": 1296746771,
  "mediantime": 1296746565,
  "nonce": 2325411586,
  "bits": "1d00ffff",
  "difficulty": 1,
  "chainwork": 
     "000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001f501f501f5",
  "previousblockhash": 
     "000000008cd4b1bdaa1278e3f1708258f862da16858324e939dc650627cd2e27",
  "nextblockhash": 
     "00000000c7f50b6dfac8b8a59e11b7e62f07fdef20597089b9c5d64ebfe6d682"
}