PROPAGATION

A transaction is broadcast into the void. It carries no identity, no sender name, no recipient address in human terms -- only cryptographic signatures that prove ownership without revealing the owner. The network receives it as raw data: bytes to be validated, propagated, and eventually committed to the permanent record.

Each node in the mesh receives the signal independently. There is no central authority to route the message, no server to authenticate the request. Consensus emerges from mathematics, not trust. The transaction propagates outward at the speed of bandwidth -- hopping between peers, each one verifying the cryptographic proof before relaying it forward.

This is the propagation phase. Data moves through the network like light through fiber: relentless, indifferent, and unstoppable once released. Every node that receives the transaction becomes a witness. Every relay is an act of verification.

CONSENSUS

PROOF OF WORK

Miners compete to solve a cryptographic puzzle -- finding a nonce that, when hashed with the block data, produces a value below the target threshold. The difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks to maintain the ten-minute interval. This is computational democracy: one CPU, one vote.

SHA-256( nonce || prev_hash || merkle_root )

VALIDATION

Every transaction in the candidate block is verified against the UTXO set. Double-spends are rejected. Invalid signatures are discarded. The block either conforms to the protocol rules in their entirety or it is worthless. There is no partial validity.

verify( sig, pubkey, tx_hash ) == true

AGREEMENT

When a miner finds a valid hash, the block is broadcast. Other nodes verify it independently. If valid, they append it to their local copy of the chain and begin mining the next block. Consensus is not a vote -- it is the emergent behavior of thousands of independent actors following identical rules.

chain_tip = max( cumulative_work )

IMMUTABLE

Once written, the ledger cannot be altered. To change a single byte in block N requires re-mining every subsequent block -- an exponentially impossible task as the chain grows. This is not security through obscurity. This is security through thermodynamics.

FORK

Two miners find valid blocks simultaneously. The chain diverges. For a brief moment, two realities coexist -- two competing histories of the same truth. The network does not panic. It simply continues, extending both branches until one accumulates more work than the other.

FORK

Two miners find valid blocks simultaneously. The chain diverges. For a brief moment, two realities coexist -- two competing histories of the same truth. The network does not panic. It simply continues, extending both branches until one accumulates more work than the other.

The longest chain wins. The orphaned branch is abandoned. Its transactions return to the mempool, awaiting inclusion in the canonical history. There is no appeal. There is no recourse. There is only consensus.