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Crypto, explained plainly.
Evergreen explainers from the research desk — how the market actually works, free to read. When you want the current data and the analyst’s read, that’s what a subscription is for.
Explainer · Bitcoin issuance
October 28, 2026
What is a halving?
Roughly every four years, the number of new bitcoin paid to miners for adding a block to the chain gets cut in half — an event that is scheduled into the protocol itself, not decided by any company, government, or central bank. Here is what a halving actually does, what it does not do, and why it matters for the people who secure the network.
Explainer · Restaking
October 27, 2026
What is restaking?
Staking secures one network with one set of tokens. Restaking takes that same already-staked capital and puts it to work securing additional services on top — oracles, bridges, and other middleware — for additional yield. The idea borrows real economic security instead of building it from scratch, but the tradeoff is not a footnote: it compounds risk, not just reward.
Explainer · Oracles
October 26, 2026
What is an oracle?
A blockchain, left to itself, has no idea what Bitcoin is trading at, whether a flight landed on time, or who won last night's game. It is a closed system by design. Oracles are how outside information actually gets in, and they are also the unglamorous infrastructure that has caused some of DeFi's largest exploits. Here is what an oracle actually is, why the problem is harder than it sounds, and what to check before trusting one.
Explainer · Crypto ETFs
October 23, 2026
Crypto ETFs, explained
Spot Bitcoin ETFs became one of the largest marginal buyers of Bitcoin almost overnight, and most people who own one could not describe what it actually holds. The wrapper is simple in concept and easy to misunderstand in practice. Here is what a spot crypto ETF actually is, what it changes about owning the asset, and what to check before treating it as a substitute for the coin itself.
Explainer · Derivatives
October 22, 2026
Crypto derivatives: futures and perpetuals, explained
Most of the daily trading volume in crypto is not people buying and selling the actual asset. It is people trading contracts whose value tracks that asset's price — often with borrowed size behind the trade. That distinction, and the leverage that usually comes with it, is the single most important thing to understand before touching this corner of the market.
Explainer · Security
October 21, 2026
How to spot a crypto scam
Crypto's most consistent product isn't a coin, a chain, or an app — it's new ways to separate people from their money. The mechanisms vary, but the underlying patterns repeat across almost every scam, regardless of what the current trend is called. Here is what those patterns actually look like, and what to check before a wallet connects, a signature gets signed, or a transfer goes out.
Explainer · Token distribution
October 20, 2026
Airdrops, explained
An airdrop is a project handing out free tokens to a set of wallet addresses — no purchase required. That sounds like easy money, and often it is, but eligibility isn't random and the claim process has become one of the more reliable places for a scam to hide. Here is what actually determines who qualifies, why projects give tokens away instead of just selling them, and what's worth checking before a claim transaction goes out.
Explainer · Memecoins
October 19, 2026
Memecoins and Launchpads: How the Category Actually Works
A token can carry no whitepaper, no product and no company behind it, and still trade at a multi-billion-dollar valuation. That is not a flaw in the market — it is the entire mechanism of a memecoin. Here is what actually drives the price, how most of them get created in the first place, and the handful of checks that separate a real look at one from a guess.
Explainer · Privacy Coins
October 16, 2026
What are privacy coins?
Every Bitcoin transaction ever sent sits on a permanent, public ledger — sender, receiver, amount, all searchable, forever. Privacy coins exist because that turns out to be a bigger tradeoff than most people realize they've accepted. The category's two biggest names, Monero and Zcash, solve it in genuinely different ways, and that difference is the whole story.
Explainer · Network Upgrades
October 15, 2026
What Is a Blockchain Fork?
A blockchain only works because every node running it agrees on the same rules. A fork is what happens when that agreement breaks — a divergence in the rules or the history of the chain, splitting one network into two possible paths forward. Here is what actually causes a fork, why some are routine and others are permanent, and what happens to a holder's coins when a chain splits for good.
Explainer · Consensus Mechanisms
October 14, 2026
Proof-of-Work vs. Proof-of-Stake
Every decentralized network needs some way to agree on which transactions are real without a bank or company making that call. Proof-of-work and proof-of-stake are the two answers that have actually been proven at scale, and they secure a network by spending two completely different resources. Here is what each one actually does, what it costs to attack, and what to check before trusting either.
Explainer · Network fees
October 13, 2026
Gas fees, explained
"Gas" is the price of getting a computer network to do something on a blockchain's behalf — and unlike most prices, it moves by the minute, set at auction rather than posted on a menu. Here is what a gas fee is actually paying for, why it spikes when it does, and why checking one before a transaction is ordinary due diligence rather than something only a power user would bother with.
Explainer · Staking
October 12, 2026
What is staking, actually?
Staking is often pitched as free yield: lock up a token, watch it grow. It isn't free — something is always funding that reward, and what that something is changes how the number should be read. Here is where staking yield actually comes from, the three ways to earn it, and the risks the headline percentage doesn't mention.
Explainer · MEV
October 8, 2026
MEV, explained
Every on-chain trade pays a network fee that's visible on the receipt. Fewer people know about the second cost that can sit on top of it — extracted by someone else, simply because the trade was visible before it confirmed. That's MEV: not a bug, not a scandal exclusive to crypto, but a structural feature of how public blockchains order transactions.
Explainer · NFTs
October 7, 2026
NFTs, explained: what's actually being bought
Most explanations of NFTs start with the art and never get to the mechanism. The more useful question is the reverse one: what does an NFT actually record, and what does owning one actually give someone? Here is what a non-fungible token is, what it does and doesn't grant its holder, and which use cases outlasted the 2021 hype cycle once the speculation burned off.
Explainer · Bridges
October 6, 2026
Crypto bridges, explained
Bitcoin and Ethereum are separate, closed systems, each with its own validators and its own history — there is no built-in way for one to read or trust what happened on the other. A bridge is the piece of infrastructure that gets around that, and it has also lost more money to exploits than almost any other category in crypto. Here is what a bridge actually does, the two common ways to build one, and why the design itself concentrates risk.
Explainer · Tokenomics
October 2, 2026
How to read a token's supply numbers
Market cap gets quoted as if it were the whole story. It isn't — market cap is price multiplied by supply, and supply is the half almost nobody checks. Here is what circulating, total and max supply actually mean, what a token unlock is, and why the supply side of a project is often more knowable, and more important, than its price chart.
Explainer · Wallets & Custody
October 2, 2026
What "not your keys, not your coins" actually means
"Not your keys, not your coins" is crypto's most-repeated warning, and one of its least explained. The phrase describes a real mechanical fact about how ownership works on a blockchain, not just a slogan. Here is what a private key actually controls, how self-custody differs from holding crypto on an exchange, and what a seed phrase is actually for.
Explainer · Scaling
October 1, 2026
Layer 2s, explained
"Layer 2" gets used as if everyone already knows what problem it solves. In plain terms: it is a separate network that processes transactions on behalf of a base blockchain like Ethereum, then settles a compressed summary back to it. Here is why the base chain can't simply scale up on its own, how the two main rollup designs differ, and what a user is actually trusting when they use one.
Explainer · Macro
September 30, 2026
How macro moves crypto
Crypto is usually framed as an alternative to the traditional financial system — yet it reliably moves on Federal Reserve meetings, inflation prints, and the strength of the dollar. That is not a contradiction. Here is what "liquidity" actually means, how it flows from central bank policy into an asset like crypto, and what is actually worth watching.
Explainer · DAOs
September 29, 2026
On-chain governance and DAOs, explained
"Governed by the community" is one of crypto's most-used phrases, and one of its vaguest. A DAO is a real, specific mechanism — proposals and votes recorded on-chain, outcomes often executed automatically by code rather than by an executive. What that mechanism can actually decide, and who actually shows up to decide it, are two different questions, and the marketing usually only answers the first.
Explainer · Exchanges
September 28, 2026
CEX vs. DEX, explained
"Exchange" gets used for two genuinely different things in crypto — a centralized platform that works a lot like a brokerage, and a decentralized one that works nothing like it. Mixing them up is where most of the confusion about custody and risk actually starts. Here is what actually happens on each, who holds custody in each case, and the real tradeoffs in speed, cost and control.
Explainer · Stablecoins
September 21, 2026
What is a stablecoin?
Stablecoins move more transaction value than almost anything else in crypto — they are the most-used product this industry has actually built. Yet the word "stablecoin" covers three very different designs, each with a different answer to what happens if the peg is ever tested. Here is what actually backs each kind, why one of them has a particularly rough track record, and what to check before trusting any of them with real money.
Explainer · DeFi
September 21, 2026
What is DeFi?
"DeFi" is one of the most-used words in crypto, and one of the least defined — people use it to mean everything from lending to trading to a coin that went up. Here is what actually makes something DeFi rather than just "crypto," how lending and trading work without a bank or a broker, and where the yield — and the risk the pitch usually leaves out — actually come from.
Explainer · Market Structure
September 21, 2026
Bitcoin vs. Ethereum: The Real Difference
Bitcoin and Ethereum are routinely compared as if they're competing for the same job. They aren't. Here is what each network was actually built to do, how their supply and security models differ, and why asking which one is "better" is the wrong question.
Explainer · Crypto × AI
September 21, 2026
Crypto × AI: Where They Actually Intersect
Any project with "AI" in its name or pitch deck now gets called the future of both industries. Most of the time that's marketing, not architecture. Here are the specific places crypto and AI genuinely solve a problem for each other, real projects working in each one, and the honest test for telling a real integration from a name tag.
Explainer · Regulation
September 14, 2026
The CLARITY Act, Explained
The Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act gets described as the bill that will finally let regulators write rules for crypto. That's not quite right — the SEC and CFTC already can, with or without it. Here is what the bill actually changes, what it doesn't, and how its rules would get written if it becomes law.
Explainer · Regulation
September 14, 2026
The CLARITY Act's Ethics Provisions, Explained
Most coverage of the CLARITY Act focuses on which regulator gets which slice of the crypto market. Folded into the same bill is a separate ethics title aimed at a different question — who is allowed to hold a financial stake in crypto ventures while also being positioned to shape how those ventures get regulated. Here is what that title contains and why each piece matters.
Explainer · Fundraising
September 12, 2026
How to read a crypto funding round
A headline like “Company X raises $50M Series B at a $400M valuation” packs a lot into one line. Here is what each part actually means, why the round type matters as much as the dollar figure, and what a market's mix of rounds tells you.
Explainer · Real-World Assets
September 12, 2026
What is RWA tokenization?
“Real-world asset tokenization” is one of the most-cited narratives in crypto — and one of the most loosely defined. In plain terms: it means representing an off-chain asset, like a Treasury bill or a building, as a token on a blockchain. Here is what that actually involves, what gets tokenized, and why it matters.
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