In cryptography and computer science, a hash tree or Merkle tree is a tree in which every leaf node is labelled with the cryptographic hash of a data block, and every non-leaf node is labelled with the cryptographic hash of the labels of its child nodes. Hash trees allow efficient and secure verification of the contents of large data structures. Hash trees are a generalization of hash lists and hash chains.
Demonstrating that a leaf node is a part of a given binary hash tree requires computing a number of hashes proportional to the logarithm of the number of leaf nodes of the tree; this contrasts with hash lists, where the number is proportional to the number of leaf nodes itself. Merkle trees are therefore an efficient example of a cryptographic commitment scheme, in which the root of the Merkle tree is seen as a commitment and leaf nodes may be revealed and proven to be part of the original commitment.
The concept of hash trees is named after Ralph Merkle, who patented it in 1979.
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