⛓️ Blockchain Consensus

Honest miners 5 Network hash rate 100 H/s Difficulty (target zeros) 4 Target block time 6 s Attacker hash-rate share 0 % Presets

Healthy

High difficulty

Fork-prone

51% attack

Chain length1

Avg block time— s

Orphan / fork rate0 %

Difficulty4

Attacker P(success)0 %

Each miner repeatedly tries random nonces; a block is valid when its toy hash starts with the required number of leading zeros (the difficulty target). The first to succeed appends a block to its tip and broadcasts. Nodes always extend the longest chain, so near-simultaneous wins create short forks that resolve when one branch pulls ahead — the loser becomes an orphan. Difficulty retargets to hold the block time. An attacker with >50% of the hash rate can out-mine the honest chain and rewrite history. Conceptual — not real cryptography.

Block DAG — orange = honest main chain, red = attacker branch, grey = orphans

Miners racing for a valid nonce; bar = hash power, glow = candidate found