2

In a bitcoin transaction the previous unspent transaction outputs are referenced.

How are these referenced?

Do outputs have unique reference or maybe as

unique transaction reference X output recipient's address (its public key)

Murch
  • 75,206
  • 34
  • 186
  • 622
croraf
  • 1,238
  • 10
  • 16

1 Answers1

5

Each transaction output is uniquely identified by an outpoint. Outpoints consist of

  • txid: The unique transaction ID of the transaction that created the output. The txid is the 32-byte sha256d hash of the transaction.
  • index: The output index (vout) that marks the position of the output in that transaction. The output index starts counting at zero and is a 4-byte unsigned integer.

As an arbitrarily picked example, the outpoint

e06a3193c6ac49b8dd862baf9bd3561ffe86d65b6e8a9e73ebe1dc91e3ca2978:1

refers to the second output of the transaction e06a3193c6ac49b8dd862baf9bd3561ffe86d65b6e8a9e73ebe1dc91e3ca2978 worth 0.001 BTC which was sent to address 1La27vpuDDr9NR1aZ6GpxoJyNYmHT62nRb.

Murch
  • 75,206
  • 34
  • 186
  • 622