Investopedia contributors come from a range of backgrounds, and over 25 years there have been thousands of expert writers and editors who have contributed. Erika Rasure is globally-recognized as a ...

Merkle trees, also known as hash trees or binary hash trees, are tree-like data structures used in computer science. They are named after their inventor, Ralph Merkle, who proposed the concept in 1979 ...

Bitcoin uses Merkle trees to gain transaction integrity and detect data tampering using cryptographic linkages. Merkle trees enable lightweight transaction verification, improving efficiency and ...