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merkel-tree.md

Merkel Tree

The Merkle tree, also known as a binary hash tree, is a data structure that is used to store hashes of the individual data in large datasets in a way to make the verification of the dataset efficient. It is an anti-tamper mechanism to ensure that the large dataset has not been changed. The word 'tree' is used to refer to a branching data structure in computer science, as seen in the image below.

Merkel Tree

According to Andreas M. Antonopoulos, in the Bitcoin protocol:

"Merkle trees are used to summarize all the transactions in a block, producing an overall digital fingerprint of the entire set of transactions, providing a very efficient process to verify whether a transaction is included in a block."

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