Bitcoin Script Clean Stack Rule and Taproot Witness Discount
How Bitcoin's clean stack rule shapes Taproot witness discount calculations, with a concrete worked example of script weight and fee math.
№ 014BitcoinWhy Compact Blocks Can't Compress Unknown Transactions
Compact blocks cut bandwidth by sending transaction IDs, not full data. But that shortcut breaks the moment a peer hasn't seen the transaction before.
№ 015BitcoinBitcoin Weight Units and SegWit Fee Rates Explained
Weight units split transactions into base and witness data, priced at 4:1. The math behind sat/vB, vbytes, and why SegWit inputs cost ~40% less.
№ 016BitcoinBitcoin's Median Time Past Rule Explained
Miners set their own block timestamps. Bitcoin's Median Time Past rule is why that doesn't let them unlock CLTV-protected coins early, the mechanic, precisely.
№ 017BitcoinBitcoin Fee Estimation: How Wallets Diverge Under Congestion
Same mempool, two wallets, wildly different fee suggestions. The mechanics of Bitcoin fee estimation algorithms, and why they split under congestion.
№ 018MiningBitcoin Nonce Exhaustion and Extra-Nonce Mining Explained
Modern ASICs exhaust Bitcoin's 4-billion nonce space in microseconds. This is the exact mechanism pools use to keep miners working.
№ 019BitcoinBitcoin Replace-by-Fee: Full vs Opt-In Rules Explained
Full RBF and opt-in RBF operate differently at the node level, concrete mechanics, fee-rate thresholds, and what miners actually receive in their mempools.
№ 020BitcoinBitcoin Drivechain: Miner-Secured Sidechain Withdrawals
Drivechain repurposes Bitcoin miners as sidechain withdrawal referees, exact mechanism, real tradeoffs, and what critics in the BIP threads actually argue.
№ 021BitcoinBitcoin's assumevalid: Script Skipping Explained
Bitcoin Core's assumevalid parameter cuts initial sync from days to hours by skipping old script checks, while still verifying proof-of-work and every UTXO.
№ 022BitcoinCoin Age: The Metric That Shaped Early Proof-of-Stake
Coin age powered the first proof-of-stake blockchains before being quietly retired. It had genuine appeal and a structural flaw that slashing eventually solved.
№ 023MiningBitcoin Nonce Exhaustion and the Extra Nonce Fix
A modern ASIC sweeps 4 billion nonces in under a millisecond. The extra nonce mechanism expands the search space, here is how the architecture actually works.
№ 024BitcoinBitcoin's Quadratic Hashing Bug: SegWit's Fix Explained
Bitcoin's sighash algorithm scaled as N² with input count, creating a live attack vector. The mechanics, the 2015 megatransaction, and how BIP143 closed it.