Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S11W5 -: Steem blockchain age

Good morning 🌄

Greetings to you all!
Steem blockchain age is a very interesting topic and I would try my best to participate and to give all answers in a best way.

What is the Genesis blockchain? Explain its meaning. Show screenshot of the Genesis block of the Steem blockchain.

The very first block of any blockchain is called Genesis block of a particular block chain we all know that starting point in anything is a point at which any project or any thing starts so Genesis block can be defined as the most starting point of blockchain creation. All initial parameters of a block chain are set by Genesis block that's why it also have a lot of importance.

Characteristics of a blockchain are determined by Genesis block and Genesis block provide us some valuable information including time stamp initial difficulty level of blockchain as well as initial disturbance of tokens.

Moreover if I further explain that which things can be determined by Genesis block then here are a list of things I am describing below.

• Genesis block determine some of the initial parameters like size of block time as well as maximum supply of token and these parameters are responsible for the functioning and operation of a blockchain.
• Initial distribution of tokens are also specified by Genesis block because Genesis block determine that how many tokens are allocated to specific entities at the very start of blockchain creation. That's why token economy also have a great impact of initial distribution of token
• For mining or validation of blocks there is a difficulty level in a blockchain that exists and difficulty level determine that how much there is effort from large computers is required for the solution of cryptographic puzzle or for the addition of new blocks in a blockchain so Genesis block plays a role in in helping and in maintaining a continuous block generation time and also secure blockchain.
• Timestamp of Genesis block is very important because it tells the exact time for the creation of blockchain as well as time stamp is also very important for maintaining the chronological order of blocks and it serves as a reference point for subsequent blocks.

Now let's move towards the procedure by which we can check Genesis block

• Open @steemworld.com and login to your account and then go to home page. At homepage you will see an option of block explorer now you have to go for that option for proceeding the procedure to check Genesis block.

Screenshot Taken from @Steemworld.com

• Your one click on block explorer option will move you towards the next step and here there would be something different written in the box but you have to substitute that block number with one because here you want to check Genesis block which is the first block and then you have to click on ok.

Screenshot Taken from @Steemworld.com

• When you click on okay then all information you would be able to see about Genesis block which would include timestamp ,witness signature as well as block ID etc and many more everything which you want to see.

Screenshot Taken from @Steemworld.com

What is the last block produced? Determine the total time of the Steem blockchain, used the production date of the Genesis block and the production date of the last block.

We would use two methods for the calculation of age of steem blockchain now first discuss first method and then we will discuss the second method.

Conversion method step by step

• First we would take latest head block time which is 77613833 and first step would be the multiplication of it with 3 as we all know that one block at steem blockchain produces in 3 seconds so we want to convert first the time into seconds that's why we need to multiply it with 3.

77613833 multiply with 3	= 232841499 seconds

• We are basically calculating from minor level and then moving on a major level so after seconds we want to convert the value into minutes that's why we need to divide these seconds with the seconds that are present in 1 minute and these are 60 seconds so we have to divide this answer with 60 seconds to obtain the answer in minutes.

232841499 ÷ 60 sec	= 3880691.65 minutes

• Next level to minutes is an hour and we all know that there are 60 minutes in one hour that's why we have to divide above value with 60 minutes and then we will obtain the answer in hours.

3880691.65 ÷ 60 minutes	= 64678.194166666 hours

steemyy

• Next level of an hour is a day that's why we want to convert the above answer with the hours that are present in a day so the hours are 24 in a day that's why we have to divide above answer with 24 hours and then we will receive answer in days.

64678.194166666 ÷ 24 hours	= 2694.9247569444 days

steemyy

• Now this is a last step and we all know that there are 365 days in a year and now we are in final step because we want to calculate now in years that's why we have to divide the above answer with 365 days and then we will receive answer in years.

2694.9247569444 ÷ 365 days	= 7.383 years

Exact answer that I got from all these calculation is 7.383 years and then we round of the value then it would be 7.4 years we can say it.

Spreadsheet subtraction method

In this method I am going to share and easy things with you all of you that we can minus or subtract the two values and these are the timestamp of latest block from the time stamp of Genesis block so let's write a formula here or write an expression here.

Age of steem blockchain= Timestamp (Latest block-Genesis block)

2023/08/27 06:02:30 - 2016/03/24 16:05:00

Now it's a time to use for calculation because it would be very difficult to subtract it in this form that's why I am using spreadsheet.

Here are the list of formula that I used in calculation at spreadsheet.

When I calculate different in days	=B5-(DATE(YEAR(B5),MONTH(B5),1))

When I calculate different in months	=DATEDIF(A5,B5,"ym")

When I calculate different in years	=DATEDIF(A5,B5,"y")

Here from the calculation it is clear that the answer that we obtain by the subtraction of latest block from Genesis block time is 7.42 years approximately.

Explain the downtime of a blockchain - why can it occur?

Down time are those times in a blockchain when blockchain network don't operate or don't work properly as usual. During down time network face different problems like difficulty while different transactions including posting commenting or claiming any rewards of blockchain as well as in validation of any block.

Due to following reasons down time can occur in a blockchain.

*If there is software upgrade or maintaince

If at any blockchain there is a requirement of an update as well as there is a requirement for maintaining performance improvement and for the fixation of different bugs and enhancement of security then down time can occur in a blockchain.During software upgrades and maintenance downtime is important for minimizing the risk of errors.

If network is congested

High levels of traffic can be experienced by blockchain during peak usage times that results in network congestion and blockchain struggle hard to process transactions in affective way which leads to delay in transactions and sometimes transaction unavailability also occurs for a temporary time.

If there are forks or consensus protocol changes

If there is any divergence in blockchain history then it may results in two versions of blockchain and these forks can be planned in the form of network upgrades that require temporary down time or it can also be unplanned in the form of accidental splits or consensus protocol failures which can also result in down time.

If there are security attacks

Down time also needs to address security attack because there could be some attackers that may try for disturbing blockchain in different forms like in the form of network code or consensus mechanism.

If there is any infrastructure and hardware disturbance

We all know that blockchain is always decentralised and there are nodes in a blockchain that validate every transaction so if there there would be any disturbance in infrastructure and in hardware then it may disturb network availability in these cases down time would be necessary for fixing hardware and infrastructure problems.

If there is DDoS attack

DDoS stands for distributed denial of service attacks and down time is caused due to these attacks by overwhelming the blockchain with a lot of traffic.Transactions to be processed becomes very difficult by these attackers and network defense starts work for normal operation Restoration that's why in that time down time also occur.

During the periods of downtime it is very important for the blockchain to have a strong communication with users for the purpose of providing different updates about a particular situation for maintaining trust of a blockchain among its users.

Has the Steem blockchain experienced downtime? If it has presented downtime, explain, mentioning the cases.

Distribution denial of service

Steem blockchain has experienced down time in the past and most important and most famous case of downtime of blockchain was a DDoS attack in 2017 as I have also discussed about DDoS attack that what is this basically.

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Case that I am sharing about DDoS attack which is distributed denial of service is 6 years ago attack , 1 year after the creation of blockchain this was an attack by different attackers. Below I am sharing a screenshot of post that was written by a good writer at that time.

Source

Server error discussion with friend

This is a server error problem I face 3 to 4 months ago and at that time I chat with my friend about the problem and suddenly I get very because I don't know that what was the problem as it was first time I face the problem here.

At that time I had an issue in claiming my rewards as well as I was not able to see my profile and others profile as well as I was not able to post my blog because pictures was not showing then my friend guided me that this is down time of blockchain and the issue would be resolved in some hours.

From the screenshot that I have taken from @steemyy.com we can see that down time of same blockchain is about 16.6 days

So that were two scenarios I have discussed in steem blockchain.

I want to invite here
@wilmer1988
@nahela
@m-fdo
@jyoti-thelight
To participate 😀

Have a nice day 💐