"One of the definitions of an oracle is “A person or thing regarded as an infallible authority or guide on something.”"
Protocols
Links to the best articles, videos and podcasts about blockchain and cryptocurrency Protocols.
"A technical overview of Ethereum’s emergent Optimistic Rollup ecosystem"
"A new solution was proposed on the bitcoin-dev mailing list this week, by the Bitcoin and Lightning developer who goes by the pseudonym “ZmnSCPxj.” Called Payswap, the proposed solution offers a simple-yet-effective trick to confuse blockchain analysis by inverting the relation between payer and payee."
"A sparse Merkle tree is like a standard Merkle tree, except the contained data is indexed, and each data block is placed at the leaf that corresponds to that block’s index."
"The Lightning Network has generated a lot of hype over the past couple of years because it enables fast, cheap Bitcoin transactions without sacrificing too much censorship resistance and decentralization."
"What is a multisig and which multisig should I use? Here’s your answer."
"in 2019 we’ve learned of new constructions like Libra, Sonic, SuperSonic, PLONK, SLONK, Halo, Marlin, Fractal, Spartan, Succinct Aurora, and implementations like OpenZKP, Hodor, and GenSTARK. Oh, and as the ink is drying on this post, RedShift and AirAssembly come along."
"In an effort to express what words cannot, this blog post will visualise the implementation of merkle trees (specifically a simplified version of the audited semaphore merkle tree), the primary data structure used throughout the MACI project.
"ZKP can be used for much more than just privacy. ZKPs are so versatily that it may redefine how blockchains work."
"Our proof-of-concept improves Swarm's resilience to failures by balancing repairs and storage, with a slightly added latency."
"One common strand of thinking in blockchain land goes as follows: blockchains should be maximally simple, because they are a piece of infrastructure that is difficult to change and would lead to great harms if it breaks, and more complex functionality should be built on top, in the form of layer 2 protocols: state channels, Plasma, rollup, and so forth. Layer 2 should be the site of ongoing innovation, layer 1 should be the site of stability and maintenance, with large changes only in emergencies"
"Most of the discussion will be at a relatively high and intuitive level; it is assumed only that the reader has a basic familiarity with zero-knowledge proof systems, group theory, and computational complexity up to understanding the class of problems known as NP."
"In a zero-knowledge proof, a prover wants to convince a verifier that some public statement is true. However, the proof of this statement holds sensitive details that can’t be shared."
"This is the second installment in the Ethereum 101 series. Previously, we explored blocks and how they’re linked to form a blockchain, then downloaded Ethereum Grid and poked around at real block data on a test network."
The ultimate effect of these schemes rolled out in their full form could be as deeply transformative as the industrial-era advent of mostly-free markets and constitutional democracy. But now, you may be thinking: "These are large promises. What do these new governance technologies have that justifies such claims?"'
"State Channels and Sidechains are the two terms in Ethereum community that are often used interchangeably, thus causing mass confusion."
"A key requirement of any blockchain is its ability to secure its chain. A secure chain is one in which transactions are verifiable and immutable i.e. by referring to the blockchain someone can obtain the details of a transaction that took place, and be sure the details are not faked and the transaction cannot be altered retrospectively."
"Achieving and enforcing consensus is at the heart of what makes cryptocurrencies tick. What does it mean and how is it achieved? Let’s start with a dictionary definition."