smart contracts</strong></a> acceptable for business operations.</p>\n<p>In fact, Ethereum has nine EIPs-Ethereum Improvement Protocols.</p>\n<p>In blockchain development, <strong>\"forks\" are the substantial changes to the software protocol</strong>. Because hard forks do not work with earlier software versions, node operators must be up to date with the most recent version. Also, soft forks are backward-compatible, so the network stays intact when the majority of nodes switch to the new software.</p>\n<p>The Byzantium fork is trying to help smart contracts and increase the usage of Ethereum. At the same time the hard fork was released, the price of the cryptocurrency increased significantly. After that, the number of transactions on ETH outmatched those of <a href=https://www.bitdegree.org/"/crypto/buy-bitcoin-btc/">BTC./nTransactions in the Merkle tree were referenced as a root parameter. But the Byzantium hard fork upgraded this feature by implementing the transaction status communication protocol in consecutive blocks.</p>\n<p>It enabled Ethereum's network to address the lack of parallel computing in order to speed up chain construction. Additionally, it enabled the construction of continuous transaction sequences, which implies that blocks in the Byzantium hard fork can process multiple transactions while just notifying success or failure.</p>\n<p>Keeping that in mind, this particular addition makes it possible for Ethereum to complete transactions in a faster manner.</p>\n<p>The Byzantium update includes Ethereum-native programming to reduce power consumption during the implementation of <a href=https://www.bitdegree.org/"/crypto/learn/crypto-terms/what-is-zk-snarks/">zk-SNARKS. To put it another way, it's zero-knowledge cryptography. The data cannot be viewed, but it can be confirmed by several parties.</p>\n<p>The use of this privacy standard in Bitcoin exchanges is increasing by the day.</p>\n<p>With the Byzantium reward, <a href=https://www.bitdegree.org/"/crypto/learn/crypto-terms/what-is-block-reward/">block rewards</strong></a> have been lowered from five ether per block to three ether per block. This move is in line with Ethereum's long-term objective of replacing block rewards with a Proof-of-stake protocol.</p>\n<p>Ethereum switched from <a href=https://www.bitdegree.org/"/crypto/learn/crypto-terms/what-is-proof-of-work-pow/">proof-of-work to <a href=https://www.bitdegree.org/"/crypto/learn/crypto-terms/what-is-proof-of-stake-pos/">proof-of-stake, and this protocol has been adopted by <a href=https://www.bitdegree.org/"https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/goon/cardano/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noindex noopener\"><strong>Cardano</strong></a>, <a href=https://www.bitdegree.org/"https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/goon/dash/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noindex noopener\"><strong>Dash</strong></a>, and a number of other cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, it might help to accelerate Ethereum blockchain transactions.</p>\n<p>The eight upgrades in the Byzantium fork:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Revert opcodes.</li>\n<li>A status field for transaction receipts.</li>\n<li>A new mathematical model.</li>\n<li>Support for specific signature verifications.</li>\n<li>Support for variable values.</li>\n<li>STATICCALL opcode.</li>\n<li>Changes in the formula behind the difficulty adjustment to account for ommer blocks.</li>\n<li>Delayed the difficulty bomb encouraging miners to switch to Proof-of-Stake.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>The new contracts will make sure that computation-intensive processes are done directly on the CPY instead of using the Ethereum client.</p>","level":"medium","meta_title":"What is Byzantium Fork? Definition & Meaning | Crypto Wiki","meta_description":"Byzantium Fork meaning: Byzantium Fork - is a blockchain update that improves security, privacy, and scalability.","meta_keywords":null,"language":"en","created_at":"2022-02-18T14:51:57.000000Z","updated_at":"2022-05-13T14:32:23.000000Z","preview_url":"https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/learn/crypto-terms/what-is-byzantium-fork"},"currentChapter":"B","currentSection":"what-is-blake-256","chapterTitle":"B","readingLevel":"medium"},"url":"/crypto/learn/crypto-terms/what-is-blake-256","version":"cdd198d50cbe5c9c21c9329d7c096ffc"}" class="container-fluid d-flex crypto-book p-0"> Crypto Terms: Letter B
What is Blake-256?
Blake-256 MEANING:
Blake-256 -
a hash algorithm used in Decred.
Let's find out Blake-256 meaning, definition in crypto,
what is Blake-256,
and all other detailed facts.
Blake-256 is a hash algorithm that was created by Jean-Philippe Aumasson, Luca Henzen, Willi Meier, and Raphael C.-W. Phan and is used in Decred. The Blake-256 algorithm was designed to run as fast as SHA-1 on 64-bit processors and MD5 on 32-bit processors. Blake is based on a variant of the Salsa20 stream cipher called ChaCha. However, Blake’s internal state (1600 bits) is larger than Salsa20’s (256 bits).
The way that Blake works can be described in steps:
- The message is initially divided into blocks, each of which is hashed separately (the last block is padded to a full block length).
- Each block is passed through a 512-bit internal state that is operated by an internal compression function (32 rows and 16 columns).
- XOR is used to combine the output of the compression function with the starting state, and then a linear transformation is used to permute it.
- After that, the final state is split into two 512-bit halves and XORed together to create the final version.
A great technique of decreasing a hash value is to XOR it with a constant value, which on some architectures can result in more efficient computing. This notion is heavily used in the Blake-256 hashing method. Besides, this does not result in a major decrease in security, and it does speed up the algorithm's processing time.
The Blake hashing algorithm creates two distinct hash functions that are combined to create a 512-bit hash value (64 bytes).
Blake is an iterative hash function that increases security against collisions and preimage attacks by using randomization. Though it uses the same amount of resources as SHA-2 (but a smaller amount than MD5) to do that.
The main features of Blake include:
- Fast Hashing. Blake is definitely one of the fastest cryptographic hash functions there is. In terms of speed, it even surpasses Whirlpool, which is the most widely used cryptographic hash function in the industry.
- Stream Cipher. This feature enables a program to hash any quantity of data without having to wait for all of it to be read. Besides, it enables the usage of such applications as file hashing utilities.
- Security. Since it has a larger internal state (1024 bits) it is definitely more secure than SHA-2, which has a half smaller internal state (512 bits).
