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I'm trying to store transactions in a database and want to generate a unique identifier from the transaction data. It must not change My data source is api.etherscan.io, and I am currently making an id from the transaction blockHash + hash, eg:

Given this transaction (with hashes are shortened for clarity):

{ blockNumber: '6564583',
     timeStamp: '1540241421',
     hash:
      '0xf59dc77',
     nonce: '34',
     blockHash:
      '0x19f51a3',
     transactionIndex: '141',
     from: '0x83b2d2289f1a666659a0261f4e0cd046386d586f',
     to: '0x164013dfdfbf67b0dfca341ff12c4a616fb2a44a',

My database id would be something like 0xf59dc77_0x19f51a3.

Is this enough to guarantee uniqueness, or is there more?

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  • The transaction hash itself (not shortened) is enough to guarantee uniqueness.
    – user19510
    Jul 3, 2019 at 18:15
  • So there's only ever 1 transaction per hash?
    – iampomo
    Jul 4, 2019 at 10:23
  • Yes. Per the answer below, it's pretty much impossible for these hashes to collide.
    – user19510
    Jul 4, 2019 at 14:45

1 Answer 1

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Transaction hashes are unique until there is a hash collision.

A hash collision occurs if two different inputs produce the same hash output. The transaction hash is 64 hexadecimal characters (2 charactes per byte) = 32 bytes = 32 * 8 bits = 256 bits. Ethereum blockchain has some 500 million transactions currently. Each of those has a possibility to cause a transaction hash collision.

We can calculate the probability of a transaction hash collision with a calculator: http://davidjohnstone.net/pages/hash-collision-probability . If you enter the aforementioned numbers you get a probability of 1.186945×10-48 which is rather..small.

So, for all practical purposes, you will not get a hash collision.

However if you only store a part of the hash the odds of getting a collision increase exponentially. If you are using 16 characters that means 128 bits. Given the same calculator the chance is 3.673419×10-22. That's a lot more than the previous one but still very very small, so you should be ok. So the (partial) hashes will most likely stay unique.

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  • A tx hash has 64 hexadecimal digits so 4 bits per digit, 64 * 4 = 256 bits per hash.
    – Ismael ♦
    Jul 3, 2019 at 17:06
  • It depends on the characters but "normal" characters take 1-2 bytes in UTF-8. And at least according to onlineutf8tools.com/convert-utf8-to-binary one tx hash takes 512 bits / 64 bytes.
    – Lauri Peltonen
    Jul 3, 2019 at 17:25
  • Transaction hashes on Ethereum are the output of keccak256 which is 256 bits. I never mentioned characters because of the ambiguity but digits instead.
    – Ismael ♦
    Jul 3, 2019 at 17:53
  • Transaction hashes are indeed 32 bytes (256 bits).
    – user19510
    Jul 3, 2019 at 18:14
  • I was sure I had some conversion mistake there. Mistook "64 hex chars" to be the same as "64 chars". Fixed now. Thanks all for the comments.
    – Lauri Peltonen
    Jul 3, 2019 at 18:42

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