Immutability
The practical resistance of confirmed blockchain history to alteration, created by consensus, replication, and economic cost.
- Also known as
- tamper-resistanceappend-only ledger
Immutability means that once data is deeply confirmed, changing it becomes impractical rather than merely inconvenient. In proof-of-work systems, an attacker would need to redo enough work to replace history and convince nodes to accept the heavier valid chain.
Blockchain immutability is not absolute. Short reorganizations, consensus bugs, emergency interventions, or deliberate hard forks can affect what history a community recognizes.
Related terms
4 linkedExplore connected entries beyond the alphabetical index.
Blockchain
→A distributed ledger made of cryptographically linked blocks that record transactions under shared consensus rules.
Consensus
→The process by which blockchain participants agree on valid transactions, blocks, and ledger history.
Finality
→Finality is the point at which a transaction is considered irreversible or economically impractical to revert.
Proof of Work (PoW)
→A consensus algorithm where computing power is used to solve complex problems, verify transactions, and create new blocks.
All terms and definitions may update as the Cryptionary improves.
