Nonce

In the context of blockchain, a nonce is a number that miners adjust to create a hash that meets the difficulty requirement of the network. Nonce stands for "number only used once," and it plays a crucial role in the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism. Miners repeatedly adjust the nonce value to find a valid hash for a block of transactions. Once they find it, the block is added to the blockchain. The nonce is used to ensure that the data within the block has not been tampered with. In Proof of Stake (PoS) systems, nonce can also refer to transaction count, ensuring that each transaction is unique. Example: In Bitcoin mining, miners adjust the nonce to ensure the block hash is less than or equal to the target hash.