TECH NEWS

Merkle Trees: The 45-Year-Old Idea That Still Holds the Blockchain Together

I’ll be honest — when I first heard the term “Merkle tree,” I assumed it was some arcane cryptography concept that only protocol engineers needed to care about. A tree named after a guy. Whatever.

Then I started digging into how Bitcoin light wallets actually verify transactions. And how Ethereum manages state across millions of accounts. And how Git diffs are so fast. And why exchanges started publishing “proof of reserves” after FTX collapsed.

Every single one of them runs on the same idea. The same data structure, invented in 1979.

This article is my attempt to explain that idea properly — from first principles all the way to why Ethereum is actively replacing it with something more sophisticated. By the end, you’ll understand not just what a Merkle tree is, but why it’s shaped the way it is, what problem each design decision solves, and where the field is...

Copyright of this story solely belongs to hackernoon.com. To see the full text click HERE

https://media.wired.com/photos/6a05ea458888ff8e2bbc35f3/191:100/w_1280,c_limit/GettyImages-1244618007.jpg

Election Officials Are Getting Ready for ICE to Show Up at the Polls

A week later, during the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting, now acting attorney general Todd Blanche endorsed the idea of ICE at the polls and repeated the conspiracy theory about noncitizens voting as an excuse to deploy ICE. “Why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places?” he

https://image.theregister.com/230518.jpg?imageId=230518&x=0&y=0&cropw=100&croph=100&panox=0&panoy=0&panow=100&panoh=100&width=1200&height=683

London's police asked Big Tech for comms data over 700,000 times last year

London’s Metropolitan Police – the UK’s largest police force – asked tech companies to give officers access to private communications data over 700,000 times in 2025 alone, according to figures obtained by The Register under the Freedom of Information Act. These statistics expose the monitoring of everyday platforms like

https://image.theregister.com/5243266.jpg?imageId=5243266&x=0&y=0&cropw=100&croph=100&panox=0&panoy=0&panow=100&panoh=100&width=1200&height=683

Smaller suppliers invited to pitch for £2.9B UK defense tech framework

Public Sector Government Commercial Agency wants DIPS 2 to reach beyond MoD buyers and the usual big-name suppliers The Government Commercial Agency (GCA) - the UK procurement body formed from Crown Commercial Service and Cabinet Office commercial teams - is seeking greater input from customers and smaller suppliers as it

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/y6irgfxAdS44m2VfkeNZPB-1920-80.jpg

This controller is one of the best I’ve ever reviewed, and works across PC, Switch, and phones — and it has a unique feature I haven’t seen bettered

I reviewed plenty of controllers in my time, but I have to admit I forgot about this one. But with the Manba One on sale right now for $55.99 (was $69.99) on Amazon, I'm reminded of what an interesting controller it is, thanks to its unique

Read more

Election Officials Are Getting Ready for ICE to Show Up at the Polls

London's police asked Big Tech for comms data over 700,000 times last year

Smaller suppliers invited to pitch for £2.9B UK defense tech framework

This controller is one of the best I&rsquo;ve ever reviewed, and works across PC, Switch, and phones &mdash; and it has a unique feature I haven&rsquo;t seen bettered

This controller is one of the best I’ve ever reviewed, and works across PC, Switch, and phones — and it has a unique feature I haven’t seen bettered