Matthew Mitchell [ARCHIVE] on Nostr: 📅 Original date posted:2012-09-13 📝 Original message:On 13 Sep 2012, at 16:16, ...
📅 Original date posted:2012-09-13
📝 Original message:On 13 Sep 2012, at 16:16, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, I'm still not seeing what the value is. How is the tree level
> useful to anyone? If you did want to get only parts of the
> transaction list, why not just ranges from the lowest level?
Obtaining a particular tree level allows you to verify segments without needing to download all the transaction hashes first. You only need one hash per segment. For instance if you want to divide the block into 8 segments you specify level 3 and download 8 hashes. You could download all transaction hashes if you wanted and it would still work, it just requires more data transfer for the hashes. This was the reason why merkle trees were used in bitcoin, to avoid requiring all hashes to verify data.
📝 Original message:On 13 Sep 2012, at 16:16, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, I'm still not seeing what the value is. How is the tree level
> useful to anyone? If you did want to get only parts of the
> transaction list, why not just ranges from the lowest level?
Obtaining a particular tree level allows you to verify segments without needing to download all the transaction hashes first. You only need one hash per segment. For instance if you want to divide the block into 8 segments you specify level 3 and download 8 hashes. You could download all transaction hashes if you wanted and it would still work, it just requires more data transfer for the hashes. This was the reason why merkle trees were used in bitcoin, to avoid requiring all hashes to verify data.