What is a Merkle Tree?

A Merkle tree, also known as a binary hash tree, is a data structure used in blockchain technology to efficiently summarize and verify the integrity of large sets of data. It consists of nodes where each leaf node represents a data block and each non-leaf node represents the cryptographic hash of its child nodes. Merkle trees enable quick and secure verification of the contents of a block without needing to download and process the entire blockchain, improving scalability and efficiency.