CBP Bitcoin Basics and Cryptography 3

Question 1

What is the role of RIPEMD-160 in creating a Bitcoin address?

Accepted Answer

It hashes the SHA-256 output of a public key to produce a 160-bit address payload

Answer

RIPEMD-160 is applied to the SHA-256 hash of a public key, producing a 20-byte hash used as the core of a Bitcoin address.

Question 2

What is a Merkle tree used for in a Bitcoin block?

Accepted Answer

To efficiently summarize and verify all transactions in a block with a single root hash

Answer

The Merkle tree hashes pairs of transactions recursively until one Merkle root hash represents all transactions, enabling efficient and tamper-evident verification.

Question 3

What is 'double spending' and how does Bitcoin prevent it?

Accepted Answer

Spending the same bitcoins twice; prevented by the blockchain's timestamped consensus ordering transactions

Answer

Double spending means using the same coins in two transactions; Bitcoin's blockchain consensus ensures only the first confirmed transaction is valid.

Question 4

What is the significance of the 'nonce' field in a Bitcoin block header?

Accepted Answer

Miners increment it to change the block hash until it meets the difficulty target

Answer

The 32-bit nonce is iterated by miners during proof-of-work to find a block hash below the current difficulty target.

Question 5

What does Base58Check encoding provide over standard Base58 in Bitcoin addresses?

Accepted Answer

An embedded checksum that detects transcription errors

Answer

Base58Check appends a 4-byte checksum (double SHA-256) to the payload before encoding, allowing wallets to detect mistyped addresses.

(CBP) Certified Bitcoin Professional Practice Test

(CBP) Certified Bitcoin Professional Practice Test

CBP Bitcoin Basics and Cryptography 3