👨🏾💻 Dev corner: how does "proof of reserves" work?
Exchanges publish reserve snapshots to show they hold your coins 1:1. Binance's latest covers 44 tokens.
The trick is a Merkle tree:
🔹 Every user balance is hashed
🔹 Hashes are paired and hashed again, up to one "root" hash
🔹 The exchange publishes the root
You can check your own balance is included without seeing anyone else's. Newer setups add zero-knowledge proofs so the totals can't be faked.
$BNB $BTC
📷 Photo: GuerrillaBuzz / Unsplash
Exchanges publish reserve snapshots to show they hold your coins 1:1. Binance's latest covers 44 tokens.
The trick is a Merkle tree:
🔹 Every user balance is hashed
🔹 Hashes are paired and hashed again, up to one "root" hash
🔹 The exchange publishes the root
You can check your own balance is included without seeing anyone else's. Newer setups add zero-knowledge proofs so the totals can't be faked.
$BNB $BTC
📷 Photo: GuerrillaBuzz / Unsplash
