Bitcoin Sighash Preimage: Input Values and Fee Theft
BIP143 bakes input values into the sighash preimage, making fee-theft via value misrepresentation cryptographically impossible. Mechanism and worked example.
№ 002BitcoinBitcoin Taproot Internal Key Commitment Explained
Taproot's internal key commitment binds script paths at construction, making retroactive invention mathematically impossible. The precise mechanism, examined.
№ 003EthereumEthereum Verkle Trees vs Merkle Patricia Tries: Proof Size
Verkle trees compress Ethereum's witness proofs from megabytes to kilobytes, the mechanism, the numbers, and the tradeoffs that make stateless clients viable.
№ 004BitcoinBitcoin Sighash Flags: What Signatures Actually Commit To
Bitcoin sighash flags control exactly which transaction fields a signature binds to, understanding them separates safe wallet code from exploitable wallet code.
№ 005BitcoinBitcoin Sighash Flags: Partial Signing Explained
Sighash flags let Bitcoin signers commit to only part of a transaction, the mechanics, the real tradeoffs, and what each flag actually does.
№ 006BitcoinBitcoin Silent Payments: Unique Addresses via BIP-352
BIP-352 lets senders derive a fresh Bitcoin address from your published keys alone, no coordination, no on-chain fingerprint. The mechanism, plainly explained.
№ 007EthereumEthereum'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.
№ 008EthereumEthereum 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.
№ 009SecurityBulletproofs: Range Proof Verification at Logarithmic Scale
Bulletproofs cut Monero range proof sizes from ~13 KB to under 800 bytes. The mechanism is a recursive inner product argument, and the math holds up.
№ 010SecurityVerifiable Delay Functions and Randomness Beacon Security
VDFs make on-chain randomness manipulation structurally expensive via a sequential delay no adversary can compress. The mechanics, caveats, tradeoffs.
№ 011SecurityKeccak-256 Preimage Resistance and Ethereum's State Trie
How Ethereum's Keccak-256 hash function blocks preimage attacks on the state trie, explained with concrete mechanics and a worked example.
№ 012SecurityMerkle Mountain Ranges: Proof of Inclusion Explained
MMRs let blockchains prove data inclusion against a growing history without invalidating old proofs. The mechanic, the math, and the tradeoffs.