What do UK banknote serial numbers mean?
What do UK banknote serial numbers mean? A Bank of England banknote has a serial number made up of a cypher followed by numbers. The cypher identifies the note’s position on the printed sheet. The following serial number relates to the sheet number. For example, on the polymer £5 note, a serial such as AA01...
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Are commemorative UK coins legal tender?
Are commemorative UK coins legal tender? Some commemorative UK coins are legal tender, but that does not mean every shop or bank has to accept them in an ordinary transaction. The phrase “legal tender” has a narrow technical meaning. The Royal Mint explains that it concerns the settlement of a debt. It does not mean...
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What Is a Blockchain Oracle? Ethereum Explained
A blockchain oracle is an application that sources, verifies and transmits external, or off-chain, information to smart contracts on a blockchain. Ethereum documentation uses oracles to explain how contracts can work with information that is not already on the chain. Why oracles are needed Ethereum smart contracts cannot, by default, access information stored outside the...
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What Is a Layer 1 Blockchain? A Neutral Guide
A Layer 1 (L1) blockchain is the base or main blockchain in a particular multi-layer architecture. It maintains its own transaction history and consensus rules. Layer 1 in context The label only becomes useful when the relationship is named. In Ethereum’s rollup architecture, Ethereum is the base layer, or L1, for the rollup built in...
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What Is a Rollup? Ethereum Layer 2 Explained
A rollup is a Layer 2 scaling approach documented by Ethereum. It executes transactions outside Ethereum Layer 1 and posts data or results to Layer 1, where the underlying chain’s consensus is used. Two documented rollup designs An optimistic rollup treats submitted transactions as valid by default and provides a challenge period in which a...
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What Is a Blockchain Validator? Ethereum Explained
A blockchain validator is a participant with a protocol role in checking and voting on proposed blockchain activity. The details vary by network. In this article, the example is Ethereum proof of stake. What an Ethereum validator does Ethereum’s proof-of-stake documentation describes validators as checking that proposed blocks follow the rules and that their contents...
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What Is a Layer 2 Network? Ethereum Explained
A Layer 2 (L2) network is a system built in relation to a Layer 1 blockchain. In Ethereum’s documentation, the term covers particular scaling solutions that handle transactions separately from Ethereum Mainnet while deriving security directly from Ethereum’s Layer 1 consensus. Rollups are one type of Layer 2 Ethereum documentation describes rollups as an L2...
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What Is a Layer 1 Blockchain? A Neutral Guide
A Layer 1 (L1) blockchain is the base or main blockchain in a particular multi-layer architecture. It maintains its own transaction history and consensus rules. Layer 1 in context The label only becomes useful when the relationship is named. In Ethereum’s rollup architecture, Ethereum is the base layer, or L1, for the rollup built in...
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What Is Blockchain Finality? A Technical Guide
Blockchain finality describes the point at which a protocol treats a block or chain state as final under its own rules. The exact meaning depends on the protocol, so this article uses Ethereum as the technical example. Ethereum’s proof-of-stake example Ethereum’s proof-of-stake documentation describes finality through pairs of checkpoints. Validators vote on these checkpoints, and...
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What Is a Blockchain Validator? Ethereum Explained
A blockchain validator is a participant with a protocol role in checking and voting on proposed blockchain activity. The details vary by network. In this article, the example is Ethereum proof of stake. What an Ethereum validator does Ethereum’s proof-of-stake documentation describes validators as checking that proposed blocks follow the rules and that their contents...
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Circulating, Proof or Brilliant Uncirculated? UK Coin Finishes Explained
UK coins can be made for circulation or as collector products. Circulating, proof and brilliant uncirculated describe different purposes or finishes. They should not be treated as interchangeable labels when identifying a coin or comparing sales. Circulating coins Circulating coins are made for use in everyday payments. They can acquire marks, handling wear and changes...
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UK Coin Mintage Figures: What They Tell You and What They Do Not
A coin’s mintage figure tells you how many coins were produced or released for a particular issue. It can help with research, but it is not a price, a guarantee of rarity and not a count of how many examples survive today. What the Royal Mint publishes The Royal Mint’s circulating-coin tables cover denominations including...
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