The Role of Hashing Process in Constructing Merkle Tree
Hashing is fundamental in constructing Merkle Trees. A hash function takes an input of any size and produces a fixed-size string of bytes, typically a hexadecimal number.
This process is deterministic, meaning the same input always produces the same output, but even the smallest change in input produces a vastly different hash.
So basically what happens is that in blockchain systems like Bitcoin, the SHA-256 hash function is used. This function takes each transaction and hashes it to produce a 256-bit number.
These hashes are then combined in pairs and hashed again to form the next level of the tree.