What is Block Height?

Learn more about Block Height and what the term means within cryptocurrencies.

What is Block Height?

Blockchains are a ledger of consecutive blocks, written one after the other, in chronological order.  The first block of a blockchain is known as the Genesis block. The most recent block in the chain, at any particular moment, is known as the Top Block.

The term Block Height can refer to a specific block number when a transaction occurred (e.g. What was the Block Height when you sent me those coins? What was the Block Height for the last Hard Fork?) or can be a more general reference to the current Top Block (e.g., What’s the Block Height at the moment?).

Every blockchain has a block explorer, which lists each block and any transactions processed in the block.  In this respect the use of the term Block Height is the same for all blockchains. It is simply a way of specifying any particular block in the blockchain.

Bitcoin Block Explorer showing Block Height:

Block Height Bitcoin Blockchain

Safex Block Explorer:

Block Height Safex Blockchain

The enormous difference between these two blockchains (transparent and privacy blockchain) is that by seeing block height on Safex blockchain, you can’t conclude much about any particular transaction, sent amount, and other private information. Whether you write in the block hash or height, you will get the same information. More about that, find in our text about Block Hash.

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