What really happens when you hit “send” on a blockchain transaction

How your transaction gets verified, secured, and added to the blockchain ledger.

When you start a transaction on a blockchain, here’s the play-by-play:

First, a digital message is created with all the transaction details—sender’s address, recipient’s address, and the amount you’re transferring. To keep it secure, the sender uses their private key to digitally sign the transaction, ensuring only they can authorize it. Once signed, this transaction is broadcast to the network, where nodes take over to verify it.

How the Network Validates Your Transaction

Nodes receive your transaction and check a few things: Do you actually have enough funds to send? Does everything look legit? If all checks out, your transaction gets bundled with others to form a block. Depending on the blockchain’s consensus mechanism—Proof of Work (PoW) or Proof of Stake (PoS)—either miners or validators then work to confirm it.

Mining and Validation: The Backbone of Blockchain Security

In PoW networks (like Bitcoin), miners compete to solve a tough cryptographic puzzle. Whoever cracks it first wins the right to add the new block and, in return, gets rewarded with cryptocurrency and transaction fees. On the other hand, PoS networks (like Ethereum 2.0) rely on validators rather than miners. Here, validators are chosen based on how much crypto they “stake” as collateral, verifying transactions without needing energy-draining computations. Validators add blocks to the chain and earn rewards through staking.

Once a block is verified and added, your transaction becomes part of the blockchain’s permanent ledger. It’s transparent and visible to everyone but locked away from edits or tampering. This decentralized approach keeps blockchain networks transparent, secure, and trustworthy.