Walking Up a Merkle Tree: SHA-256 Proof Validation in Python
The article discusses how to verify a Merkle proof using SHA-256 in Python. It explains the structure of a Merkle proof and provides a step-by-step guide on how to walk up the Merkle tree to validate the proof. The author also shares code examples for combining hashes and verifying the proof against a file.
- ▪A Merkle proof consists of sibling hashes that allow reconstruction of the path from a file's hash to the Merkle root.
- ▪The order of concatenation in hash combinations is crucial for accurate verification.
- ▪The article includes Python code examples for both combining hashes and verifying a complete Merkle proof.
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| Original publisher | DEV.to (Top) |
| Canonical URL | https://dev.to/craig_solomon/walking-up-a-merkle-tree-sha-256-proof-validation-in-python-2fg9 |
| Publication time | Mon, 18 May 2026 13:00:01 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-18T13:04:56.494Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-18T13:04:56.494Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | Sr9cBfS_0TuS |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
try { if(localStorage) { let currentUser = localStorage.getItem('current_user'); if (currentUser) { currentUser = JSON.parse(currentUser); if (currentUser.id === 3861408) { document.getElementById('article-show-container').classList.add('current-user-is-article-author'); } } } } catch (e) { console.error(e); } Craig Solomon Posted on May 18 • Originally published at proofledger.io Walking Up a Merkle Tree: SHA-256 Proof Validation in Python #blockchain #insurance #legaltech #evidence You get a file hash and a Merkle proof that claims it's anchored in some blockchain transaction. How do you verify that claim without trusting the service that gave you the proof? I built ProofLedger to create these proofs, but the verification should work independently.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at DEV.to (Top).
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