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Blockchain & DeFi Guides
Comprehensive, practitioner-written guides to blockchain technology, decentralised finance, tokenisation, and digital assets. Built for investors, founders, and finance professionals who want depth — not just definitions.
20
Guides published
2
Topic areas
306min
Total reading time
Fundamentals
Fundamentals15 min read
How Tokenisation Works
A comprehensive explainer covering the full tokenisation stack: legal structures, smart contract enforcement, compliance standards, settlement mechanics, yield distribution, and the risks every investor should understand.
What Is Tokenisation?The Tokenisation StackAsset Categories+7 more
Fundamentals13 min read
How Prediction Markets Work
A comprehensive guide to prediction markets: how binary outcome contracts are priced, how AMMs set odds, how decentralised resolution works, the major platforms, their accuracy track record, and the regulatory landscape.
What Are Prediction Markets?How They WorkProbability & Price+6 more
Fundamentals14 min read
How Perpetual Futures Work
A comprehensive guide to perpetual futures contracts: how the funding rate mechanism anchors perp prices to spot, how leverage and margin work, what triggers liquidations, mark price vs index price, and how CEX and DEX perpetuals compare.
What Are Perpetual Futures?Perps vs Traditional FuturesThe Funding Rate Mechanism+6 more
Fundamentals14 min read
How On-Chain Settlement Works
A comprehensive guide to on-chain settlement: how traditional T+2 settlement works and why it fails, how blockchain achieves atomic and instant settlement, the difference between probabilistic and deterministic finality, delivery-versus-payment, cross-chain settlement, and the risks every participant should understand.
What Is Settlement?Traditional Settlement & Its CostsOn-Chain Settlement Mechanics+7 more
Fundamentals16 min read
How DeFi Works
A comprehensive guide to DeFi mechanics: how automated market makers price assets, how lending protocols calculate interest rates, what triggers liquidations, how flash loans work, yield farming strategies, governance, MEV, composability, and the risks every DeFi user should understand.
What Is DeFi?Automated Market MakersLending & Borrowing+7 more
Fundamentals13 min read
How Stablecoins Work
A comprehensive guide to stablecoin design: how fiat-backed, crypto-collateralised, algorithmic, and hybrid stablecoins maintain their peg, the stablecoin trilemma, yield-bearing designs, regulatory frameworks, and how stablecoins fail.
What Is a Stablecoin?Fiat-Backed StablecoinsCrypto-Collateralised+6 more
Fundamentals15 min read
How Layer 2 Scaling Works
A comprehensive guide to Layer 2 scaling: why blockchains need L2s, how optimistic and ZK rollups work, what sequencers do, the data availability problem and EIP-4844 blobs, bridge security, the major L2 ecosystems, and what the endgame for Ethereum scaling looks like.
The Scaling ProblemHow L2s WorkOptimistic Rollups+7 more
Fundamentals13 min read
How Vaults & ERC-4626 Work
A comprehensive guide to DeFi vaults and the ERC-4626 tokenised vault standard: how vaults pool capital and deploy yield strategies, how deposit and withdrawal mechanics work, share price accounting, the fragmented pre-standard landscape, composability benefits, vault strategies from simple lending to delta-neutral, and the risks every vault user should understand.
What Is a Vault?Before ERC-4626The ERC-4626 Standard+6 more
Fundamentals16 min read
How Crypto Lending Works
A comprehensive guide to crypto lending: how exchange margin lending works, how OTC and institutional bilateral lending is structured, how DeFi overcollateralised protocols set rates algorithmically, how collateral and liquidations differ across venues, undercollateralised and credit-based lending, the major players, regulatory landscape, and the risks every lender and borrower must understand.
What Is Crypto Lending?Exchange & Margin LendingOTC & Institutional Lending+7 more
Fundamentals14 min read
How Tokenised ETFs Work
A comprehensive guide to tokenised ETFs: how the authorised participant mechanism works, how tokenisation wraps around traditional ETF structure, the boom in money market and Treasury fund tokenisation (BUIDL, OUSG, FOBXX), equity and bond ETF tokens, NAV tracking and price deviation, the major products and their regulatory status, and the risks every investor must understand.
What Are Tokenised ETFs?How Traditional ETFs WorkThe Tokenisation Layer+6 more
Fundamentals14 min read
How Tokenised Stocks Work
A comprehensive guide to tokenised stocks: how real equity is wrapped into on-chain tokens, the difference between asset-backed and synthetic models, how issuance and redemption work, how dividends and corporate actions reach token holders, the major platforms and their regulatory status, and the risks every investor must understand.
What Are Tokenised Stocks?Asset-Backed vs SyntheticIssuance & Redemption Mechanics+5 more
Fundamentals15 min read
How PayFi Works
A comprehensive guide to PayFi (Payment Finance): how stablecoin rails compare to card networks and SWIFT, how payment streaming works, the Buy Now Pay Never model, yield on money in transit, cross-border payment corridors, merchant acceptance and settlement, the major protocols and platforms, regulatory landscape, and the risks every participant should understand.
What Is PayFi?PayFi vs Traditional Payment RailsStablecoin Payment Rails+7 more
Fundamentals14 min read
Crypto Corporate Actions
A comprehensive guide to crypto corporate actions: how hard and soft forks split chains, how airdrops distribute tokens, how rebase mechanisms work, what token burns do to supply, how on-chain governance executes protocol changes, how vesting schedules release supply, and how to evaluate the impact of each event on your holdings.
What Are Corporate Actions?Hard Forks & Soft ForksAirdrops & Token Distributions+7 more
Fundamentals17 min read
The Anatomy of a Smart Contract
A comprehensive guide to smart contract architecture: how the Ethereum Virtual Machine executes bytecode, how storage slots and packing work, function visibility and state mutability, the ABI and function dispatch, global context variables, reentrancy attacks and defences, inheritance and libraries, upgradeable proxy patterns, and how events connect contracts to the off-chain world.
What Is a Smart Contract?The EVM: The Execution EnvironmentContract Structure+9 more
Fundamentals18 min read
ERC Standards Explained
A comprehensive guide to Ethereum's ERC standards: how the EIP process works, the ERC-20 fungible token interface and its approve/transferFrom pattern, ERC-721 NFTs and safe transfer hooks, ERC-1155 multi-token batch transfers, ERC-165 interface detection, ERC-2612 gasless permit approvals, ERC-4626 tokenised vaults, ERC-4337 account abstraction and smart wallets, proxy storage standards (ERC-1967, UUPS, Diamond), ERC-3156 flash loans, and how these standards compose to create DeFi's money legos.
What Are ERCs?ERC-20: Fungible TokensERC-721: Non-Fungible Tokens+9 more
Fundamentals16 min read
Cryptography for Blockchain
A comprehensive guide to blockchain cryptography: how hash functions create tamper-evident fingerprints, how elliptic curve cryptography enables private ownership, how digital signatures prove authorisation without revealing secrets, how Merkle trees make membership proofs efficient, how HD wallets derive unlimited keys from a single seed, and what post-quantum computing means for the future of cryptographic security.
What Is Cryptography?Hash FunctionsPublic-Key Cryptography+7 more
Advanced
Advanced16 min read
How Zero-Knowledge Proofs Work
A comprehensive guide to zero-knowledge proofs: the three core properties (completeness, soundness, zero-knowledge), how interactive and non-interactive proofs work, the difference between SNARKs and STARKs, how arithmetic circuits encode computation, ZK-rollups, privacy applications, identity and credential systems, and the limitations and risks of ZK technology.
What Are Zero-Knowledge Proofs?Completeness, Soundness & Zero-KnowledgeHow ZK Proofs Work+7 more
Advanced20 min read
How to Build a Vault — Commercial & Technical Guide
A complete implementation guide to building production ERC-4626 yield vaults: commercial positioning and fee design, the full ERC-4626 interface explained, Solidity implementation with inflation attack protection, management and performance fee mechanics, Aave v3 strategy integration, the six critical security attack vectors (with code), Foundry unit and invariant testing, proxy and timelock deployment patterns, operations monitoring, and go-to-market strategy.
The Vault as a BusinessThe ERC-4626 InterfaceCore Implementation+7 more
Advanced17 min read
How ZK Payments Work
A comprehensive guide to ZK payments: why blockchain transparency is a privacy risk, how shielded transactions use note commitments, nullifiers, and ZK spend proofs, Zcash's shielded pool and Orchard upgrade, Aztec's private smart contracts, the difference between ZK privacy and ZK-rollup scalability, how Monero's ring signatures compare, the Tornado Cash sanctions, selective disclosure via viewing keys, ZK identity and compliant privacy, and what's coming on Ethereum's native privacy roadmap.
What Are ZK Payments?The Blockchain Privacy ProblemHow Shielded Transactions Work+8 more
Advanced16 min read
How Price & Risk Oracles Work
A comprehensive guide to blockchain oracles: why smart contracts cannot access external data, how decentralised oracle networks aggregate prices from multiple sources, the difference between push and pull models, how TWAP oracles work and why they resist flash loan manipulation, the history of oracle attacks, risk oracles including UMA's Optimistic Oracle, and where oracle infrastructure is heading with ZK proofs and TEE attestation.
The Oracle ProblemHow Price Oracles WorkDecentralised Oracle Networks+8 more
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