CongoSky Skunkworks
Four leaves, hashed pairwise up to a single root. Edit any leaf and watch the change ripple straight to the top — turning every hash on its path gold. This is how tamper-evidence works: you publish the root, and one flipped bit anywhere below is impossible to hide. The mechanism behind the notarization and coherence-ledger proofs.
Each node is SHA-256(left ‖ right) of its children; leaves are SHA-256(text). “Publish the root” pins the current root — then any later edit is flagged against it, exactly as a notary or an audit log anchors a moment in time. (Real Merkle proofs also let you verify one leaf against the root without revealing the others — selective disclosure, in the coherence-ledger proof.)