Inside the gears of Bitcoin // 5 parts.
A technical series to understand how Bitcoin works at the bit level: cryptography, binary transactions, mining, consensus, P2P, privacy, Taproot, and what comes next.
~78 min of reading
2026 · crypto
After Understanding Bitcoin in 5 articles , we step into the machinery. This series is for those who want to really understand how it works: the secp256k1 elliptic curve, the Script language, the 80-byte header miners hash, the Merkle tree, Nakamoto consensus, the BIPs.
10 articles, each readable on its own but designed to be read in order. No programming required — just the desire to look under the hood.
A math side-quest (Math prerequisites ) supports the series for anyone needing a refresher on modular arithmetic, hashing, or the law of large numbers.
This series is not investment advice. See our legal notice and our disclaimer .
The cryptography of Bitcoin
SHA-256, secp256k1, ECDSA, Schnorr, address derivation: the cryptographic block that holds Bitcoin together, explained at a useful level without drowning in formulas.
The anatomy of a Bitcoin transaction
UTXOs, binary structure, the Script language, output families, witness and malleability: we take apart a real 222-byte Bitcoin transaction, field by field, until you can read it with the naked eye.
Bitcoin mining, in detail
80-byte header, nonce and extraNonce, difficulty, from CPU to ASIC, mining economics and pools: we take apart a real block mined on 31 October 2026 to understand what a miner literally does — and who decides what goes into blocks.
Merkle trees and light clients
How 32 bytes summarise 6,000 transactions, how 416 bytes prove a transaction is in a block, and how your mobile wallet tracks your balance without downloading the blockchain: Merkle trees, inclusion proofs, Bloom filters and block filters, recomputed on real blocks.
Math prerequisites for Bitcoin (side-quest)
Modular arithmetic, hash functions, elliptic curves, the law of large numbers — the 4 mathematical building blocks needed to follow the Inside the gears of Bitcoin series, explained as intuition, without heavy formulas.