I am really excited about the bitcoin concept, but there remains still a few questions.
Thanks for every answer and I would be thankful for any links as well
Miners take the last blocks hash plus the transactions plus a nonce and create an hash over it until they find the hash with the desired leading zeros.
1. What data do they actually chose to create the hash? The last blocks hash? The mercle root? Only the hash of each transaction or adresses as well(my guess would be, just the transaction hashes)? plus the nonce, which is a alphanumeric number?
(maybe a hint to the file, where that is specified would be satisfying and nice)
2. Is it more difficulty to find the solution with more transactions? So would it be easier to find the solution with just one transaction rather than 1000? If that is correct, why do miners include transactions without fees?
3. Verification: I still do not really get it, how that process technically works. Let's assume, I spend one bitcoin double. So there emerge two transactions, which get broadcasted to the network.One miner takes this two transactions into a block (because the fee is high) and solves the riddle. What happens next? Do other miners just ignore the solution? What is their insentive to ignore that new block?
Thank you very much
porcupine