Crypto Academy Season 3 Week 4 Homework Post for @pelon53 | Hash rates and Merkle Tree

Hello mates. Another week of exciting and educative lectures in Steemit Crypto Academy. Thanks to all the professors for the work done so far. This is my submission for the homework task given by @pelon53 in his lecture on Hash rate and Merkle Tree.

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1. Explain in Detail The Hash Rate

Hashing and hash rates are very popular issues in cryptocurrency. They are normally concerned with Proof of work blockchain systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Hash is a mix of alphabets and numbers used to represent a message or data in a blockchain. A popular example of hash generator is SHA256.
Hash rate or hash power simply, is the speed it takes to mine a block in a blockchain. The hash rate is determined by the processing power of the device used in mining. The hash rate is a very important component of the blockchain system because it measures and also indicates the productivity and efficiency of the device used in mining.
Hash rate is measured using the unit hash per second.
Below are some hash rate measurement terms.

Measurement term	Unit measure
1 kilo hash per second (1 Kh/s)	one thousand hashes per second (1,000 h/s)
1 mega hash per second (1 Mh/s)	one million hashes per second (1,000,000 h/s)
1 giga hash per second (1 Gh/s)	one billion hashes per second (1,000,000,000 h/s)
1 tera hash per second (1 Th/s)	one trillion hashes per second (1,000,000,000,000 h/s)
1 peta hash per second (1 Ph/s)	one quadrillion hashes per second (1,000,000,000,000,000 h/s)

It should be noted that, the higher the hash rate of a mining device, the faster mining is completed. Hash rates can also vary depending on the cryptocurrency and the device used for mining. The hash rate to mine a blockchain keeps increasing as more users join to mine; increasing the difficulty to mine hence increasing the hash rate. Higher hash rate implies higher network security and higher rewards after successful mining.
There are instances where a group of miners gain over 50% control of a blockchain network. This is known as the 51% attack and these group of miners can interrupt the whole mining process by preventing other miners from completing blocks in the blockchain.

2. Make The Following Merkle Tree:
Transaction (Tree Leaves): Steem1, Steem2, Steem3, Steem4, Steem5, Steem6, Steem7, Steem8.
Make it to The Root Hash and put every Hash Generated using SHA-256, Show Screenshots.
Tell The Steps to Follow to Verify if Steem6 is Included in The Markle Tree

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Tree Leaves Hash

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Steem 1

Hash: 7760E25BCB80ADF1DD92DB339BF5790A59E90CD54EFA072F1250DCE13FA97045

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Steem 2

Hash: FE00506E91CF52BC4B35321E6B978D1A7349397B19C6C1C01E095971FDEC9741

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Steem 3

Hash:
A9418332E0C351D6A50C835AA9E57D514F0573C231D491E97726DB8A5844F2DC

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Steem 4

Hash:
22F4EC8E20C9CCAF2C313B23F18981B1C73BF39081BCD739E5D998A95A46AB30

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Steem 5

Hash:
2A3C87336683AB0DDFA56AFEFC740E6C13A02FEA0A43D6797343B26D7AF0C57B

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Steem 6

Hash: A7BAA6DE0C0658E9E3681966E542BACD116529F5AE9A2D9126CDB1C1D5BC1278

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Steem 7

Hash: D441688DDA7F9285E8811728DD9A3955CF74F0A3C7600C1589D0F1D3B48FFAC7

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Steem 8

Hash: F2E38ED4FF662087B6E9BEAFA4158EBC488B995732057BDA019A6A77FFB5F9F5

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Tree Branches

Steem1Steem2

Hash: A5568957014F6AC3866923C7DE20D375E706B8D8C9F453636E90B9965ABEC62B

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Steem3Steem4

Hash: 18D25196DB699F6AB9222B7302EB8A6F6EBFADEC703C07DD5DB8D9455913A499

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Steem5Steem6

Hash: D118E137F92A0DBEA138B6BF70C7714153A7BC393CD0272A44BD94864645224B

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Steem7Steem8

Hash: A81D57BA11AEDFA9EFBBA42F6523D75D1EFA50B22C5E3557A21CEFFE87DDFC4A

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Second Level Tree Branches

Steem1Steem2Steem3Steem4

Hash: 8A248C05E69C4F1AA403AD18A7F445FF500C42483DA425CE0C980CDB2FD1AD9B

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Steem5Steem6Steem7Steem8

Hash: 8B0935AEAB3F51BFA2B0750703EE2387E2B20EB19B0D24227E180C03A851AF17

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Root Hash

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Steem1Steem2Steem3Steem4Steem5Steem6Steem7Steem8

Hash: 9C2FC83F36D59B8ED5033D2BCC417728583C8DAA0AA9868FD374BE3619D6E4F9

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Creating the Merkle Tree

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Steps to Follow to Verify if Steem6 is Included in The Merkle Tree

• To verify if Steem6 is included in the tree, you first verify Steem5; the leaf node next to it and in the same branch.

• You then verify Steem7Steem8.

• Verify the Branch Steem1Steem2Steem3Steem4 and

• Lastly verify Steem1Steem2Steem3Steem4Steem5Steem6Steem7Steem8, the Root Hash of the block.

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Tree leaves

Using The SHA-256, You must Place each Complete Hash in The Merkle Tree Transaction (Tree Leaves): SCA1, SCA2, SCA3, SCA4, SCA5, SCA6, SCA7, SCA8. Explain each Step, Show Screenshots. If The Number of Leaves on The Tree is Odd, What should you do? Explain.

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SCA1

Hash: 13E0A04BB0E669E1C638DBE3A704743F99F162B25245E4D8C064D35BA38FA8C8

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SCA2

Hash: 27849353A9C8CC4E948EB6E5748EDD79CB83513D8C0ADAF3E8C83D3792C9149B

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SCA3

Hash: 67E872F952C105C35E0BCE130536D061F4999DCA5593754BA9BA7BE59B8E7C0D

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SCA4

Hash:
491928A32BAE70A12FA251412BBFD7C9999F317BA6BF577C283C724225270A43

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SCA5

Hash: 99C078C39CDE7F47799E0E8691460A9F3E83E78D498EA989308FCFCC58907B19

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SCA6

Hash: 7A648D887B124DB14E96E23BA92783E7F26D00957C19B9B8229632C2C1873729

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SCA7

Hash:
7E0BBD6BA4BA9896F9911AF46B06DD2C47535F9C80B29D693FDF6B9319D0D68E

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SCA8

Hash: 562ABCEEB497E1FE7AE275A883FD5EF9D92A05F5C19D82ABAA0DC1571B7DF3AD

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Tree Branches

SCA1SCA2

Hash:
91B09BBA815748166FB36413342C7E4E7E809F4BAC538C0418841A4476B527EF

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SCA3SCA4

Hash:
B49B48697A3ACBC5E3D2E36B6EE49C44020D88E664C5C1AA7A7CF34058177379

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SCA5SCA6

Hash: F026924CD1285FF92C2A2DE9B9313027EB67273A82375C939348C887F6B52F77

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SCA7SCA8

Hash: AA55EC5A6B11393B289C4B2B6916172ACC2941C5C978FB1D7BF02696BAB323A4

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Second Level Tree Branches

SCA1SCA2SCA3SCA4

Hash: F50DC120CBF6C46923037F6D7F41D4153ECC9AB7430DDA662C142DB1FFE483F7

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SCA5SCA6SCA7SCA8

Hash:
A3D8CA8494CC426ABD5E1FC5FA0FEAE4F2B2ECE4C4CECDCA05E19EB66542533F

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Root Hash

SCA1SCA2SCA3SCA4SCA5SCA6SCA7SCA8

Hash: CB40CA6DB72DD507CF9118963F94B7740822258E74AFB0FD45D89DB35D24B386

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Creating the Merkle Tree

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If The Number of Leaves on The Tree is Odd, What should you do? Explain.

The merkle tree can only be complete if the leaves in the tree is even because the leaves are usually paired and continued till the root hash is generated. In an event where the number of leaves is odd, the last leaf should be duplicated to make the number even.

Example

A tree with 3 leaves; SCA1, SCA2 and SCA3 will look like this:

SCA3 will have to be duplicated so we have another SCA3 to complete the tree. The Tree Branch will then be SCA3SCA3, and the Root will be SCA1SCA2SCA3SCA3.
Below is how the Merkel Tree will look like:

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Conclusion

As discussed hash and hash rates are two important components of the Blockchain technology. Hash is the alphanumeric codes use to represent a message or text in a blockchain. Hash rates or hash power is simply the speed or time it takes to mine a block in a blockchain.
Blocks in the Blockchain can be arranged in a Merkle Tree identifying from individual leaf nodes and their hash, to branches and finally the root hash. The Merkle tree helps miners to verify a block or a transaction in the blockchain without downloading the entire blockchain.

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Thanks for reading. Huge credits to @pelon53 for this lecture.