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Merkle tree

As explained in Real-World Cryptography

A Merkle tree is a hash tree whose internal nodes are hashes of child nodes and whose root commits to the data in its leaves.

A Merkle tree compresses many data items into one root hash. Each internal node hashes its children, so the root commits to the leaves. section 12.2.4

A membership check works in a few steps:

  • Start with the leaf and its neighboring hashes along the path to the root. section 12.2.4

Bitcoin transaction inclusion

A Bitcoin block stores a Merkle root rather than its transactions. A lightweight client can download block headers and request a small proof that a transaction belongs to a block. section 12.2.4 section 12.5

How Real-World Cryptography covers it

How deep it goes
Explains node construction and logarithmic membership proofs, stopping short of implementation detail.
Examples
Uses Bitcoin transaction inclusion, block headers, neighboring hashes, and root reconstruction as concrete examples.
What it assumes
Assumes familiarity with hashing and Bitcoin blocks while defining the tree structure from basics.
What you can do after
Apply it via membership proofs to verify data inclusion without downloading every leaf.
How it connects
Connects hash functions, blockchain, Bitcoin, block headers, and membership proofs.
Cover of Real-World Cryptography
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Related concepts

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Real-World Cryptography. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.