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How are txns sorted correctly in Merkle trees between nodes and validated via Proof of Work

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I am interested in exactly what happens to transactions in the pending block (block that is being mined at the time). From what I understand, transactions are the stored as a Merkle tree hash inside the block, along with the parent hash, timestamp and nonce. During mining, the miner is hashing the block data with a different nonces' trying to achieve the target hash. I assume what they are hashing is all the block data including the merkle root. But the merkle root must be different to each miner/node due to transaction order and the generation transaction, so how do other nodes come to consensus if their transactions are different. There is a hole in my understanding.

Furthermore, when transactions are broadcasted across the network, nodes will receive them at different times due to network latency etc. and miners can rearrange the order of transactions due to fee incentives, but this changes the merkle root. I understand that miners prove they have done the work to validate the transactions, but what steps do other nodes take to go 'looks legit'. I imagine they would use the nonce provided by the block creator to hash their own copy of the block and see if it in within the target.

Also, If PoW is done on the block data with the merkle root, how can new transactions be added to the block? Wouldnt the tree have to be hashed again and the PoW would have to start from the beginning. Does a miner wait for the block size limit to be reached before performing PoW? I don't understand how PoW can be done on a dynamic flow of transactions, and how every node can have the exact same set of everything to do PoW on.

Can someone please explain what I am missing? How are transactions sorted by different nodes? How do transactions enter the merkle tree? How do other nodes validate the new block?

Thank you heaps.


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