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Understanding SHAMap and LedgerHash in the XRP Ledger
Understanding SHAMap and LedgerHash in the XRP Ledger — A Practical Hands-On Guide
🧭 Introduction
Most people see the XRP Ledger (XRPL) as a mysterious blockchain full of hashes and ledgers.
But in reality, you can feel how its structure works — just by running a few SHA256 commands.
In this article, we’ll explore how SHAMap and ledgerHash work, and reproduce them step by step on your local machine.
🔐 1. SHA256 — The Digital Fingerprint
SHA256 is a one-way function that turns any data into a 64-character “digital fingerprint.”
Even the smallest change in input completely alters the result — a property called the avalanche effect.
Try it:
echo -n "hello" | shasum -a 256Now change just one character:
echo -n "Hello" | shasum -a 256→ You’ll see a totally different hash, even though only the first letter changed.
That’s why blockchains can detect even 1-bit tampering.
