Working with On-Chain Data
In Chapter 1, we learned about the fundamental concepts of a blockchain. We discovered that a blockchain is a distributed ledger composed of a chain of blocks, where each block is cryptographically linked to the previous one. Each block contains transaction information and the hash of the preceding block. Additionally, transactions can modify state data in Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-based chains.
On-chain data represents the trace left by each transaction within the blockchain. It is stored as byte data, which requires parsing in order to become human-readable. To illustrate this follows a fragment of the Bitcoin genesis block in its raw format, sourced from https://wiki.bitcoinsv.io/index.php/Genesis_block (license: CC BY 3.0):
00000000Â Â 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00Â Â 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ... 00000080Â Â 01 04 45 54 68 65 20 54Â Â 69 6D 65 73 20 30 33 2FÂ Â Â ..Ethe Times 03/ 00000090Â Â 4A 61...
