Explaining each block creation can be done in multiple ways and many sounds very confusing but it also depends on your understanding of the technology. Therefore, hearing or reading it the first time can be difficult to comprehend. I already explained that miners have an unusual role for validating each transaction in the form of a block. Now, let’s discuss what it takes to create each block.
- Start a new block. Even if the miners are half-way done validating a block, eventually, they will drop everything and concentrate on starting a new block.
- Select a new transaction. This is when the miners are choosing from thousands of operations that are broadcasted over the network.
- Check priority of the transaction. This time the miners can go back to number one by starting a new block if they find that the transaction they have selected previously is not that significant. However, if the priority is high, the miners may go on and move to the next step.
- Check that the transaction is valid. This is a process that every miner must check, there is no exception of avoiding this step for any miner. However, if the transaction is found to be faked, or not valid, the miners have to stop the process, and go back to number 1 and start a new block and get another, hopefully, valid transaction.
- Accept the transaction. If the previous transaction was tested as a valid transaction, it must be accepted.
- Seal the transaction. Again, if the transaction has been found valid and accepted, now it’s time to seal that transaction.
- Add the transaction to the transaction tree inside the block. This process can only be done once all previous steps have been verified.
- Check for the size of transactions. The miners need to check if there are enough transactions within the transaction tree to seal the block. If there are not enough transactions yet, the miner will not be able to seal the block until there are enough transactions. Therefore, the miners must go back to number 2 of selecting a new transaction again, and again, until there are sufficient transactions for sealing the block.
- Check interruptions. This is the process where the miner must make sure that no other miners have sealed the block in the meantime with the same transactions inside the block.
- Seal the block. Once there are enough transactions for sealing the block, the miners will seal the block.
- Broadcast the block. The miners must broadcast the new block that has been sealed; however, if the miners have been interrupted within the block sealing process, they might have to start a new block all over again.
- Start a new block. This is the next step in the process; however, as you see, we are now back to step number 1. As I mentioned before, miners might get interrupted while they are sealing the block and once they broadcast it, if another block has already been sealed by another miner with the same transactions within a block, the block will not be accepted. Therefore, they must start a new block.
Each block is created about every 10 minutes. As a result, 144 blocks are created each day. The miners who have successfully added a new block into a Blockchain get rewarded a degree of Bitcoin. The reward for each new block creation used to be 50 Bitcoins from 2008 until 2012. The reward for a new block gets halved every four years; therefore, from 2012, until 2016, the award for each new block used to be 25 Bitcoins. Until 2020, the reward to a miner for a new block that is added to the Blockchain was 12.5 Bitcoins; but since 2020, it is only 6.25 Bitcoins until 2024. From 2024, the reward will drop to 3.125 Bitcoins until 2028 and so one. This process will continue until 2140 until the last Bitcoin will be created.
