It's a privilege to have been a member of Steemit Crypto Academy for a while. I have been learning and at same time receiving reward. All thanks to all the Professors and the people behind this great initiative.

This post is written in response to a fixed beginner course, "Task 3– The Genesis Block" taught by Professor @awesononso. He gave three different questions in which we are to choose one. So, I will be answering the first in the next paragraphs.

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1a) What is the Genesis block? (b) What are the significances of the Genesis Block? (c) Explore the Bitcoin Genesis block and indicate how many transactions so far and the number of bitcoins.

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I have chosen the question number one (1). The question has three parts, a, b and c. I will be taking them one after the other. So, follow me closely.

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1a. What is the Genesis block?

It's important we know what the word Genesis means before I explain the Geneis block. The word "Genesis" means the beginning. Everything that is created or invented has a beginning. There's nothing you see today that doesn't have where it comes from. Everything has a start. The world we live has a beginning. The beginning of it was when it was created. For example, when an Architect want to give a design of a building, he will have to start from knowing which foundation the building would have, and after knowing the foundation, he will design the rest of the building based on this foundation type. It's at the foundation the builder will start the building. The foundation therefore can be regarded as the beginning of the building. In essence, the origin of a thing is its beginning, its foundation.

Now, having known what the Genesis is, let me explain the Genesis block.
The Genesis Block is referred to the first block which formed on a blockchain. It's often reffered to as the beginning of the block formation in a blockchain. It can also be referred to as the mother of all blocks in a particular blockchain.

The first block formed in a blockchain is known as the Genesis block. This genesis block is so significant to the blockchain. All other blocks formed after the first block, the Genesis block is linked to it. Thus, genesis block is reffered to the origin and all other blocks finds their root to it. Just as humans are linked to their fore fathers, so is it for blocks, they are linked to the genesis block. In essence, every block has its foundation on the genesis block.

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_{Illustration of Blocks linked to Genesis Block | Designed with imarkup app}

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1b. What are the significances of the Genesis Block?

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Having known what Genesis block is, it's important to know why it's significant. Because, someone may say, why do we even need this Genesis block, why is it so important to us? I will give some of the reasons why this block called Genesis block is significant.

Firstly, genesis block shows the start of a blockchain and without it, it will be very difficult to know when a blockchain comes into existence. For example, bitcoin genesis block was created on the 3rd of January, 2009 and that was regarded as the birth of bitcoin blockchain. People can see when the blockchain began. In essence, if there's no genesis block, people won't have belief for such blockchain because there's no evidence to do so.

Secondly, this genesis block acts as foundation for all other blocks. We all know the importance of having a foundation. A house without a foundation cannot stand. In fact, may be it's not a house, because there's nothing like that without a foundation. Every block forms after the genesis block are the lineage of it. Without genesis block, none of this block will stand, they will collapse because they would have nothing to stand on.

Furthermore, genesis block is important because without it, it will be difficult for miners to follow the consensus rules. This is essential because when they will have to follow these rules so the mining could be successful. The genesis block is often regarded as the starting point of consensus. So it is this block, genesis block which miners use to agree upon it and that will allow them to successfully do their work. In essence, it is needed to have a consensus point.

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1c. Explore the Bitcoin Genesis block and indicate how many transactions so far and the number of bitcoins.

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For this task, I am going to use bitcoin blockchain explorer known as blockchain.com. You can click here to view the website.
Upon clicking on the link, you will be directed to the homepage of the website.

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_{bitcoin blockchain explorer homepage}

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At the top of the page, there's a search box where we can input the number of blocks, transaction or anything we want to search in. In the box, I will type in zero (0) which is the block number for the genesis block. So, upon typing it, I will click on search and it will bring in information for the the genesis block. See the screenshot below.

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_{bitcoin genesis block Information}

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As it can be seen in the screenshot above, after clicking on the search, there are lots of information of the genesis block showing on the screenshot. We can see that the miner is named unknown but it's believed that Satoshi Nakamoto is the miner of the genesis block.
The Hash is : 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f

Timestamp: 2009-01-03 19:15

Block Reward: 50.00000000 BTC

The day the genesis block was mined, the block reward is 50 BTC as seen in the screenshot. Now, to know the transaction and the bitcoin so far, we click on the address in the screenshot above. See where my black arrow is pointing at. I even wrote**"click here" beside the arrow. So, upon clicking on it, we will see the transaction and the number of bitcoins that has been deposited to the address so far.
See the screenshot below.

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_{Transaction and number of Bitcoin}

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As it is seen in the screenshot above, the transaction is 3, 117 as at the time of writing this task. And we can see that bitcoin received to this address is 68.52528369 BTC which worth ($4,415,430.77)".

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Conclusion

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The Genesis Block is the first block mined on a blockchain. It's reffered to the foundation in which all other blocks stand. It is important to know and search for the genesis block in any project because of its significance. Without gensis block, there won't be a point of consensus which miners can agree upon. Every other block form on the blockchain is linked to the genesis block.

In this task, I have learnt what genesis block is, its significance and was able to explore the bitcoin genesis block, identified the transaction and the bitcoin so far. Thanks to Professor @awesononso for the wonderful teaching on the genesis block.

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