Blocks: the heartbeat
Everything in a drivechain happens one L1 block at a time.
3 min readA chain of blocks
Transactions on L1 are grouped into blocksBlockA batch of transactions added to the chain by a miner, on average every ten minutes.. Miners compete to find the next block using proof-of-work, and the network adjusts the difficulty so a new block appears about every ten minutes on average.
Every block has a heightHeightA block's position in the chain: the number of blocks before it. (how many blocks came before it) and a hashBlock hashA block's unique fingerprint. Each block also records the hash of its parent, which links the chain together., a unique fingerprint. Each block also records its parent's hash, which is what chains them together.
Why blocks matter for drivechains
Every drivechain action is written into an L1 block: proposing a sidechain, voting on it, depositing, voting on a withdrawal, paying it out. Votes are counted once per block, and deadlines are measured in blocks, not in days.
Blocks are the clock of a drivechain. "Too old" means "too many blocks ago", whatever time the wall clock shows.
The latest L1 blocks
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When the chain changes its mind
Sometimes two miners find a block at almost the same time and the network briefly splits. The branch with more accumulated work wins, and the blocks on the other branch drop out of the chain. This is a reorganizationReorganization (reorg)When the network switches to a competing branch with more work, so some recent blocks stop being part of the chain.. The effects of those blocks, including any drivechain votes, are undone; their transactions may be included again in later blocks.
The monitor keeps such blocks on record instead of deleting them, so you can still inspect what happened.
Competing branches
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Go deeper: block time vs. the time we saw it
A block's timestamp is written by its miner and may differ by a few minutes from real time. The monitor separately records when it first observed each block. That is why a block can appear to be "seen" before its own timestamp.
Each block's work is added to its parent's to give the chain's accumulated work. That total, not the number of blocks, decides which branch wins.
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