What is Hash in Blockchain Technology? What are its Types?

Blockchain technology is emerging as technological innovation in all industry sectors in recent years. The transactions and data stored on the blockchain network are immutable and secured.?Distributed ledger technology, including blockchain, uses hashing functions to secure the data.?Exploring the concept of hashing is necessary for a better understanding of how Bitcoin works. Let us start with the idea, other related terminologies, and hash types.?

What does Hash in blockchain mean?

Hashing is a cryptography process for converting any data form into a unique text string. Irrespective of the type, scale, length, and size of the data, any data piece of data can be hashed. The output is in the form of a fixed-length string.

With blockchain adopted for cryptocurrencies, it used a predetermined hashing algorithm for transactions of the same varying length. The length of input does not affect the hashing process. Output is called a Hash.?

For example, Secure Hashing Algorithm (SHA 256) is used in Bitcoin. SHA 256 always gives out a fixed length with a 256-bits length (32 bytes).?

Hashing process ensures easy tracing or recalling of the transactions. Hash size depends on the hash function decided. Simply put, a YouTube video of 50 megabytes and a text message of 10 kilobytes would have the same length of 256-bits. The difference would be in the hash pattern.?

Also Read:?Why it is Crucial to Choose Appropriate Crypto Wallet – (blockchainshiksha.com)

Characteristics of Hash Functions in Cryptography

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Written by Shubhada Pande