Nonce: A 32-bit random number that miners adjust repeatedly to find a block hash that meets the difficulty target. Finding the correct nonce is the "Proof of Work" (PoW) that secures the network.
Transaction Counter & List of Transactions:
A count of the number of transactions included in the block.
The actual list of verified transactions. The first office 365 email list transaction in any block is always a special coinbase transaction, which rewards the miner who successfully found the block with newly minted Bitcoins and collects transaction fees from all other transactions in the block.
Collection of Transactions: Miners collect pending transactions from the "mempool" (a pool of unconfirmed transactions).
Block Assembly: They compile these transactions into a new block candidate.
Proof of Work (PoW): Miners then perform a computationally intensive process to find a "nonce" (a number) such that, when combined with the block header data and hashed, the resulting hash is less than or equal to the current difficulty target. This is a brute-force guessing game.
Verification and Broadcast: The first miner to find a valid nonce broadcasts the new block to the network.
Network Consensus: Other full nodes on the network verify the block's validity (checking all transactions and the PoW). If valid, they add it to their copy of the blockchain.
Reward: The successful miner receives the block reward (newly minted Bitcoins, currently 3.125 BTC as of the April 2024 halving) plus all the transaction fees from the transactions included in that block.