{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,13]],"date-time":"2026-10-13T17:11:52Z","timestamp":1791911512492,"version":"4.3.4"},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Innovative Publishers and Plagiarism Services","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]],"date-time":"2025-12-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1766534400000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JSRT"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Centralized trust models increasingly fail amid rising cyber threats and institutional skepticism, positioning blockchain as a revolutionary architecture that guarantees security through mathematical proofs rather than human oversight. This paper analyzes blockchain's cryptographic trinity hash functions (SHA-256), digital signatures (ECDSA), and Merkle trees\u2014that convert basic data into tamper-proof, authentic, and scalable ledgers, resolving the security-decentralization-scalability trilemma. Traditional ledgers suffer cascading failures from single alterations, countered by SHA-256's avalanche-effect hashing for immutable block chains, ECDSA's pseudonymous transaction authentication securing Bitcoin's $1.2T market (2025), and Merkle trees' O(log n) proofs enabling lightweight verification of massive datasets. Unlike fragmented surveys, this study synthesizes their interdependent roles in Bitcoin\/Ethereum, quantifying performance via comparative tables (key sizes, compute times) and addressing quantum threats. Findings reveal ECDSA's 75% efficiency over RSA and Merkle trees' logarithmic scaling as pivotal for DeFi\/supply chain adoption. This primer equips researchers with implementation insights for next-generation decentralized systems.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.61808\/jsrt384","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,26]],"date-time":"2025-12-26T02:29:48Z","timestamp":1766716188000},"page":"254-259","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Blockchain's Cryptographic Backbone: Mastering  Hash Functions, Digital Signatures &amp; Merkle Trees"],"prefix":"10.61808","author":[{"family":"Abdulrahman Syed","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"47981","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]]},"container-title":["Journal of Scientific Research and Technology"],"original-title":[],"link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/jsrtjournal.com\/index.php\/JSRT\/article\/download\/384\/448","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/jsrtjournal.com\/index.php\/JSRT\/article\/download\/384\/448","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,26]],"date-time":"2025-12-26T02:29:49Z","timestamp":1766716189000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/jsrtjournal.com\/index.php\/JSRT\/article\/view\/384"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]]},"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.61808\/jsrt384","relation":{},"ISSN":["2583-8660"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2583-8660","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]]}}}