Grokking Bitcoin

Chapter 8. Peer-to-peer network

This chapter covers

• Removing the last central authority: the shared folder
• Following a transaction in the peer-to-peer network
• Leaving behind the silly cookie tokens
• Bootstrapping the peer-to-peer network

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the shared folder. All blocks the miners produce must pass through the shared folder on their way to other full nodes and miners. This chapter will remove the central shared folder and replace it with a decentralized peer-to-peer network (figure 8.1). The peer-to-peer network lets full nodes (including miners) send blocks directly to each other. When nodes can talk directly to each other, we no longer need a central point of authority for communication.

Figure 8.1. ...