Why Is the Transaction Data Hashed before Being Included in the Tree?
The transaction data is hashed first to standardize the input size. Cryptographic hash functions produce a fixed-size output (e.g.
32 bytes for SHA-256) regardless of the input size. This uniformity is essential for the tree construction, where hashes are concatenated and re-hashed.
It also provides the initial integrity check for the individual transaction data.
