cryptoinbrief.

An open guide to how it works

Crypto, from
the inside.

For people who really want to understand crypto. Follow a payment, change the rules, and see why the network says no.

Start from zero Explore the guides
Follow one payment
Follow a signed payment from Alex to SamTwo wallets show their balances. A signed transaction travels through a proposed block to checking nodes. When the nodes accept the block, Sam's balance updates. The animation is a teaching model. Alex's wallet10 BTC Sam's wallet0 BTC Create paymentAlex → Sam1 BTC Node 1Waiting Node 2Waiting A transaction is an instruction, not a coin file.
Bitcoin · step 1 of 4Preparing signature…

A payment starts with an instruction

Alex chooses Sam and an amount. The wallet builds a transaction in that network’s format.

Try changing the rules
No wallet. No real funds.
What is real in this example?

Your browser creates an ephemeral ECDSA P-256 key, signs a demonstration payment, then verifies it. Changing the amount fails that real check. Wallet balances and network consensus are illustrated; no transaction is submitted. Production networks use their own signature schemes and transaction formats. Fees are omitted.

Free to read. Open source. Built for the curious.

New to all of this?

Three stops to get your bearings.

01See the big pictureGet the vocabulary02Build your intuitionExperiment with Bitcoin03Compare the rulesExplore proof of stake

Pick the question that interests you.

Each guide explains the idea, then gives you something to change, test, or break.

The big picture

Why blockchains exist, what a wallet holds, and how the pieces fit together.

Start here · Illustrated guide

Crypto terms

Wallet, gas, confirmation time, staking, restaking, and the other words that show up the first time you send.

Glossary · Confirmation time

Start using crypto

Hot versus hardware wallets, Rabby versus MetaMask, Jupiter versus Phantom, explorers, and crypto cards.

Practical guide · Wallets and cards

Dollar yield in DeFi

Read DefiLlama, stake Ethena sUSDe, and see what looping on Kamino actually does to liquidation risk.

Practical guide · Yield and looping

Bitcoin

Change a transaction. Watch its hash change. Then mine a block and try to rewrite history.

Hashing · Mining · Ownership

The Bitcoin white paper

Read the 2008 paper section by section, then separate its original proposal from Bitcoin today.

Paper · Design · What changed

Inside Bitcoin Core

Follow a transaction through the code that parses, checks, stores, mines, and connects it.

Source code · Validation · Tests

Proof of stake

How validators agree on a chain, why they lock up coins, and what happens when they cheat.

Validators · Voting · Finality

Solana

Build a clock from hashes and see why independent transactions can run side by side.

Ordering · Consensus · Parallelism

Sui

Follow objects between owners and find out why shared objects need a common order.

Objects · Ownership · Move

Monero

Work through the layers that hide a payment’s sender, receiver, and amount.

Decoys · Addresses · Commitments

Bitcoin and Monero papers

Compare Bitcoin’s 2008 paper with CryptoNote in 2013, then see where Monero moved beyond that starting point.

Comparison · Privacy · Evolution

How to get Monero

Compare atomic swaps, Haveno P2P and exchanges. Follow the funds and see who you trust along the way.

Practical guide · Buying and selling

Zcash

See how a shielded payment can be checked without making its details public.

Shielded payments · Double spending

Zero knowledge

Prove a statement without handing over the secret. Then explore what that means for identity.

Proofs · Private credentials

Prefer to read in Arabic?

Start with the illustrated overview, Bitcoin, or Monero.