Skip to content
Showing posts from May, 2025

Stablecoin Architecture: Reserves, Redemption, Market Prices and Settlement

The Blockchain Story · Lesson 6 of 12 · Beginner to Intermediate Narrative introduction added October 20, 2026 (UTC). The mechanism guide below retains its separate review date. Why stablecoins beca…

Cardano Architecture: eUTXO, Ouroboros, Hydra and Parameter Changes

Reviewed and updated: October 19, 2026. Cardano is easier to understand by following a transaction than by imagining two independent blockchains called settlement and computation. Its ledger model, …

Avalanche Architecture: Primary Network, Snowman and Avalanche L1s

Map the jobs of Avalanche’s Primary Network chains and L1 validators. Use the Cortina and Etna changes to understand why older architecture descriptions need dates. Three Primary Network chains, …
Avalanche Architecture: Primary Network, Snowman and Avalanche L1s

Polkadot Architecture: Shared Security, Coretime and XCM

Separate Polkadot’s validator selection, block production, finality, coretime and cross-chain messaging. Learn which component answers which question about shared security. Concept illustration of …
Polkadot Architecture: Shared Security, Coretime and XCM

How Solana Works: Parallel Execution, Confirmation and the Limits of TPS

Technical review: October 27, 2026 (KST). Updated the consensus and commitment sections following Alpenglow's mainnet-beta activation. Solana is a blockchain designed to execute many transactio…

Ethereum: Architecture and How It Works – A Deep Dive

Last fact-checked: 12 October 2026 (KST) · Educational guide Ethereum combines accounts, programmable contracts and shared execution rules. To understand an application, follow three things: who …
Ethereum: Architecture and How It Works – A Deep Dive

Bitcoin Architecture Explained: Wallets, Nodes, Miners and UTXOs

Reviewed and updated: October 19, 2026. Bitcoin's architecture becomes easier to understand when the roles are separated. Wallets help users construct and authorize transactions. Full nodes inde…

Proof of Authority Explained: Validator Admission, Finality and Governance

Reviewed and updated: October 19, 2026. Proof of Authority, or PoA, describes networks in which approved participants have authority to produce or validate blocks. It is an admission and trust model…

Delegated Proof of Stake: Producer Elections, Finality and Governance Risk

Reviewed and updated: October 19, 2026. Delegated proof of stake, or DPoS, describes a way token holders influence a set of block producers. It does not specify one universal block time, throughput …

Proof of Stake Explained: Proposals, Finality, Penalties and Staking Risk

Reviewed and updated: October 19, 2026. Proof of stake uses economically committed stake in a blockchain's consensus process. It does not describe one identical protocol across every network. Et…

Proof of Work Explained: Hash Targets, Probability and Chain Selection

Reviewed and updated: October 19, 2026. Proof of work makes producing an acceptable block computationally costly while allowing others to check that work efficiently. Bitcoin's implementation se…

Blockchain Security Fundamentals: Hashes, Signatures, Encryption and Trust

Reviewed and updated: October 19, 2026. Hashes, digital signatures and encryption solve different problems. Treating them as interchangeable produces misleading claims about blockchain privacy and s…

How to Learn Blockchain: Five Practical Foundations and Exercises

Reviewed and updated: October 19, 2026. You do not need to master every networking layer or buy cryptocurrency before learning how a blockchain works. A better starting point is a sequence of small …

When Is Blockchain Useful? A Decision Guide with Practical Limits

Reviewed and updated: October 19, 2026. Blockchain can help participants maintain and verify a shared record under agreed rules. Whether that is useful depends on the problem: who writes the data, w…

What Is Blockchain? A Simple Shared-Ledger Example

A blockchain is a way for participants to maintain a shared record in linked groups called blocks. The important idea is not that computers stop copying data. They copy and check records so they can…