Merkle tree
A Merkle tree is a binary tree of hashes that enables efficient verification of large data sets, used in blockchains for transaction inclusion proofs.
- Also known as
- hash tree
Leaves are hashes of data chunks; parents hash their children up to a root. Verifiers can check membership with a short proof without downloading the entire set.
Merkle trees provide logarithmic proof size and support efficient updates. Variants include Merkle Patricia tries used in account-based chains.
Related terms
3 linkedExplore connected entries beyond the alphabetical index.
Hash
→A fixed-size digest produced by a one-way function, used for data integrity, identifiers, signatures, and proof-of-work.
Block
→A batch of valid transactions added to a blockchain, linked to the previous block by a cryptographic hash.
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.
