There is no encryption anywhere in bitcoin protocol.
[/quote]

decrypted - Poor choice of word on my part.  Sorry.  My 2nd question was really about the data used to create the merkle root.  Is the merkle root hash used in some way to breakout the transaction data so that is can be confirmed?

A Block is composed of a block header and transactions(~2000).  The header is composed of the previous block hash, time stamp, nonce, and merkle root.  Two questions :  (1) Where in the process does this information get confirmed once a hash has been determined? (2) When and where is the data decrypted?

I also found this video with links doing a step by step of hashing data and how it works....Im putting it here for others falling down the same rabbit hole!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_160oMzblY8

Yes thank you!  Diagrams are the best when it comes to iterative logic in code.  Thank you very much!!!

Thank you very much!  Yes the bitcoin source code.

I found pow.cpp last night so thanks for confirming!  Really interesting code...I am not that familiar with hashing but I think I am able figure things out with all of the information available.  I think this will an interesting rabbit hole!

Thank you for the info on cgminer too.  I have Bitcoin Core running on my Mac just to help me understand as I am a hands on learner.  I didnt expect it to work but could see that has inbound/outbound connections with little activity.  With the current demands of processing the long chain it make sense the mining task would be off loaded.

I really appreciate the help!

What is the main purpose of Bitcoin Core?....transactions within the Bitcoin network?

Mark

...I am new to this forum and the bitcoin architecture.  After downloading the source code from Github I am having trouble navigating the structure of the code.  My interest is learning the logic that performs the hashing to create the Proof-of-Work and links the blocks.  My goal is to learn this part as I think it has other uses in the technology field potentially IoT and communications (top four layers).

Is there any documentation that explains the code architecture at a high level?

Thanks in advance.....and thanks to the development team that has kept this solution going!  Really awesome work!