Overview

It's been a decade since Bitcoin with its underlying computing model, the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) model, brought the most prominent application of blockchain technology today - a decentralized financial system. These simple set of words encompass various virtues that make this new type of system much better than legacy financial systems. Bitcoin's seminal work started the first wave of projects that offer a system with the attributes described above. Years later this pioneer breakthrough inspired subsequent revolutions reimagining socio-economic systems beyond the uni-dimensional feature of supporting transactions in a peer-to-peer manner. A second wave introduced smart contracts, which allows users to put conditions on financial transactions written in verifiable code which paves the way for decentralized applications (dApps) to emerge. Furthermore, a third wave of projects embedded self-governing mechanisms in the system. Today, a competitive blockchain must offer a network protocol that meets all previous advancements, in addition to having a detailed roadmap that is highly focused on maximizing all three dimensions of the decentralization-security-scalability triad (also known as the 'blockchain trilemma'). The approach that promising blockchain projects take is to first lay solid foundations weaved by multi-diciplinary research that latter

on compounds into better quality of software. This distinction is characteristic of all UTXO Alliance members. The Alliance has, at its core, the goal of advancing blockchain technology by fostering collaboration towards interoperability, research, commercial adoption and education. The latter sets the tone of this manuscript.

Goals

1. This handbook aims to be a presentation card of all the different chain designs of UTXO Alliance members. Aiming to be a handy resource for entrepreneurs, commercial partners and a general audience with minimal technical knowledge. 2. Explain the key aspects of the UTXO model and the functioning of a blockchain using simple visual flowcharts. 3.Expose the rich variety of the different designs implemented by various blockchains that are part of the UTXO Alliance.