Crypto 101
The coins themselves, not their price: what each one is, how it works, why it was created, and what really supports it.
The coins themselves, not their price.
Most articles about crypto start with the price and don't go any further. But how much something costs today says nothing about whether it's worth the cost. This section covers the other half: what a crypto is, where it came from, what problem it was created to solve, and how it works below the chart.
None of that shifts when the market does. Bitcoin appeared in 2008 as a nine page paper written by someone who has never been identified. Its first block was mined in January 2009 with a newspaper headline buried inside it. There will only ever be 21 million coins, and that limit is arithmetic rather than policy. Facts like these hold whatever the price is doing, and knowing them is the difference between making a decision and taking a guess.
Start with our Bitcoin guide. It runs from the whitepaper to the genesis block, shows what really happens when you send a payment, explains the 21 million limit and the halvings that enforce it, and does not skip the failures. That includes the day in 2010 when a bug conjured 184 billion bitcoin out of nothing, before the network was patched within hours.
Nothing here assumes you own crypto or plan to. There is no code to read and nothing to sign up for. If you have been hearing these words for years without anyone explaining them to you who was not also selling something, start here.
What Midnight Is and How It Works
Midnight explained from zero: how it verifies transactions without seeing the data, what NIGHT and DUST do, who runs the network, and what has gone wrong.
What Cardano Is and How It Works
Cardano explained from zero: the voucher sale in Japan, the 318 million ada nobody claimed, how Ouroboros picks who writes each block, staking that never locks up your coins, and the treasury ada holders now control.
What Bitcoin Is and How It Works
Bitcoin explained from zero: the whitepaper, the genesis block, how a transaction really moves, why there will only ever be 21 million, and what has gone wrong.