Read your own transaction, and compare two chains
About 956 wordsAbout 3 min
Nothing new to send
This mission reuses the Sepolia transaction you made in Week 1. No wallet work, no real funds, no mainnet.
What you're doing
Three short pieces: read your own Week 1 transaction properly, compare Ethereum with one other blockchain on three trade-offs, and answer one question about bridges.
Week 1 was about doing. Week 2 is about reading.
In Week 1 you sent a transaction and explained what happened. You now know considerably more — what gas actually pays for, why blockchains differ, what "settled" means. Going back to the same transaction with better eyes is the fastest way to feel that you learned something.
The comparison is the skill that outlasts this programme. Chains you have never heard of will launch every month. Being able to say what one traded away, and for what, is how you evaluate any of them.
What to submit
Read your own transaction
Open your Week 1 transaction on Sepolia Etherscan and report six fields: From, To, Network, Status, Gas Used, Transaction Fee.
Then, in 1–2 sentences: what does gas measure?
Compare Ethereum with one other chain
Choose one of: Bitcoin, Solana, a Cosmos chain, or Avalanche. Compare it with Ethereum on exactly three dimensions, as a short table:
finality · throughput · security participation · decentralisation · execution model · ecosystem
Then, in 3–4 sentences: what did your chosen chain gain, and what trade-off did it accept?
Why do bridges exist?
In 2–3 sentences: why can one blockchain not automatically know what happened on another blockchain?
Item 2 asks for a trade-off, not a winner
"Chain X is better than Ethereum" is not an answer to that question.
Expected length
Roughly 250–350 words including the table. No new on-chain activity, no essay. Optional: up to eight image or PDF uploads.
Submission checklist
For reviewers — what "completed" looks like
Two or three minutes. You are checking comprehension, not prose quality, and not whether they picked the comparison you would have.
| Item | Standard |
|---|---|
| 1 | All six fields, matching a real Sepolia transaction from that member. The gas explanation should convey that gas measures computational or execution work, and that the fee is the monetary cost of that gas. Observing that more complex operations generally consume more gas is useful, but it is not required for completion |
| 2 | Three genuine dimensions, with a stated trade-off in both directions |
| 3 | Reaches the actual reason: blockchains cannot see each other. Each network only knows its own state, so there is no native way for one to observe or verify what happened on another. A bridge or cross-chain messaging mechanism provides or verifies evidence from one chain so another chain can act on it |
Acceptable trade-offs for item 2 — any defensible answer counts, including ones not listed here:
- Solana's high performance requiring more validator hardware and bandwidth, which can reduce validator accessibility
- Bitcoin's simplicity costing programmability
- Cosmos's sovereignty costing shared security
- Avalanche-style configurable or sovereign network design can give application teams more control over execution and network parameters, but they must define and sustain their own validator/security setup rather than automatically inheriting another network's full security
Item 3 extra credit — not required — for noting that this is why bridging adds a trust assumption.
Send it back if: transaction fields are missing or do not match a real transaction; item 2 names a winner instead of a trade-off, or compares fewer than three dimensions; item 3 describes lock-and-mint mechanics without explaining why the problem exists; or the writing is clearly copied.
Do not send it back for: choosing an unusual chain, a comparison you disagree with but which is defensible, short answers that are correct, or imperfect English.
If a recovery phrase or private key appears
Reject immediately. Tell the member their wallet is compromised and to create a fresh one. Do not repeat the phrase in your feedback.
If this gets rejected
Rejection means resubmit — it is not a fail
There is no deadline and no penalty for taking longer. You will be told the one specific thing to fix.
The three most common rejections at Week 2:
| What happened | The fix |
|---|---|
| Item 2 names a winner. "Solana is faster and therefore better" is not a trade-off | What did the speed cost? Part 2 has the answer for all five chains |
| Item 3 explains how a bridge works instead of why one is needed | The question is about the problem, not the mechanism. Part 5, opening two paragraphs |
| The gas explanation says gas is "the fee" | Gas measures work; the fee is what that work costs. Part 4 separates them |
All three are quick fixes. Stuck on any of it, ask in the Telegram group.
Changelog
5a3b0-refactor(academy): finalize two-track curriculum architectureonff0f4-feat(academy): finalize Foundation learning experienceona931f-docs(foundation): finalize beginner learning path and handbook UXon2d4b4-docs(curriculum): finalize Week 0-2 Foundation revisiononaed71-Bootstrap Blockchain@NTU Academy Handbookon