Implicit Ethereum Classic Blockchain Information
To the beginner, some necessary information may appear to be missing from the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain. This information is implicitly contained in the blockchain which may lead to confusion.
Examples
Account Balances - Regarding accounts, the blockchain specifies transfers but not balances. They can nevertheless be determined by accounting for all the transfers in all the blocks.
Smart Contract Storage - Regarding smart contracts, the blockchain specifies machine codes and input data but not storage values. They can nevertheless be determined by executing all the invocations on all the input data in all the blocks.
Transaction Sending Accounts - With respect to sending accounts, transactions contain digital signatures but not addresses. They can nevertheless be determined from the digital signatures and transactions using the mathematical properties of the signature algorithm.
Transaction Gas Requirements - The blockchain specifies the gas requirements for certain sets of transactions. It does not specify the requirements for every transaction separately. They can nevertheless be determined from the given transaction set gas requirements.
Average Mining Hash Rates - The blockchain specifies mining block creation times and mining difficulty parameters. It does not specify mining hash rates. However, the mining hash algorithm and mining difficulty parameter are defined such that:
<H> ≅ <D> / <ΔT>
where <H> is the average mining hash rate, <D> is the average mining difficulty parameter, and, <ΔT> is the average creation time difference between consecutive blocks. The averages can be taken over any desired number of blocks.
Conclusion
The ETC blockchain brilliantly encodes information in a practical manner. It supports the ETC world computer without being unwieldy. Although it may at first appear incomplete, it still includes all the essentials.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong) for funding this effort.
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