DeFi & Staking

Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZK): Proving Facts Without Revealing Inputs Circuits and witnesses, proving and verification flows, zk-SNARKs versus zk-STARKs, recursion and aggregation, and how ZK powers privacy and scaling across Web3 today. TL;DR: A prover convinces a verifier that a statement is true without revealing the secret witness. In Web3, ZK enables privacy (shielded transfers and […]

Hash Functions in Web3 (SHA-256, Keccak-256, Merkle Trees) Preimage resistance, collisions, avalanche, and how hashes secure blocks, addresses, storage, logs, and proofs across modern chains. TL;DR: A cryptographic hash maps arbitrary data to a fixed-size digest while resisting preimage, second-preimage, and collision attacks. Bitcoin standardizes on SHA-256 (often applied twice), while the EVM stack uses

Interoperability Protocols: Polkadot, Cosmos (IBC), and Wormhole From shared security and cross-consensus messaging to guardian-signed messages across heterogeneous chains. What each model guarantees, where it is strong, where it fails, and how to build safely on top. TL;DR: Interoperability stacks differ mainly in how they verify foreign state and who bears security. Polkadot couples chains

Bridges and Cross-Chain Swaps: Lock and Mint, Burn and Redeem, Liquidity Routers How assets and messages travel between chains, what is actually verified, and how swap aggregators compose routes across bridges and DEXs while controlling risk, fees, and finality. TL;DR: Bridges come in two flavors: asset movement and message passing. Asset bridges use lock and