Bitcoin Tapscript: Conditional Spending, Hidden Branches
Tapscript lets Bitcoin transactions spend one condition while keeping all others permanently hidden. The exact mechanism, with a worked example.
№ 038EthereumEthereum's Keccak-256 vs SHA-3: Same Sponge, Different Hash
Ethereum uses Keccak-256, not NIST SHA-3. Same sponge construction, different padding, different output, and the gap has broken real production tooling.
№ 039EthereumEthereum Blob Fee Market vs Base Fee: The Split Explained
Ethereum's blob fees and base fees run on separate meters and diverge sharply during peak rollup demand. The mechanics, with numbers.
№ 040BitcoinBitcoin Output Scripts and UTXO Set Growth Explained
P2PKH, P2SH, P2WPKH, and P2TR each leave a different footprint on Bitcoin's UTXO set, the tradeoffs affect every full node running today.
№ 041EthereumEthereum Verkle Trees: Witness Size for Stateless Clients
Verkle trees shrink Ethereum's cryptographic witnesses from megabytes to kilobytes, the mechanics of why that matters for stateless client verification.
№ 042MiningPPS vs PPLNS Mining Pool Payouts Explained
PPS pays a fixed rate per share; PPLNS ties earnings to the last N shares. Learn which model suits which miner and why the math matters.
№ 043BitcoinBitcoin Locktime and Sequence Numbers Explained
How Bitcoin's locktime field and sequence numbers combine to create relative timelocks. The mechanics, a worked example, and one common misconception.
№ 044EthereumStateless Ethereum Clients and Historical State Verification
Stateless clients verify the present with mathematical rigor, but historical state needs witness data that may not exist. The tradeoff, examined plainly.
№ 045EthereumEthereum Inactivity Leak and Clustered Validator Risk
How Ethereum's inactivity leak punishes geographically clustered validators harder than spread-out ones, and what the math actually looks like.
№ 046MiningBitcoin Nonce Grinding and the ASIC Clock Speed Plateau
ASIC clock speeds have stalled while SHA-256's sequential dependencies keep the per-hash cost floor stubbornly fixed, what that means for mining economics.
№ 047BitcoinBitcoin Dust: Why High-Fee Networks Create It Faster
Small UTXOs become unspendable dust when fees exceed their value. High-fee networks accelerate this faster than most people realise.
№ 048EthereumEthereum Proposer Boost: Stopping Short-Range Reorg Attacks
Proposer boost adds a 40% committee-weight bonus to timely blocks, raising the cost of short-range reorg attacks above rational MEV profit thresholds.