Key concepts

This section describes the key concepts and features of the Corda platform. It is intended for readers who are new to Corda, and want to understand its architecture. It does not contain any code, and is suitable for non-developers.

This section should be read in order:

• The network
• The ledger
• States
• Contracts
• Transactions
• Flows
• Consensus
• Notaries
• Time-windows
• Oracles
• Nodes
• Tradeoffs

The detailed thinking and rationale behind these concepts are presented in two white papers:

• Corda: An Introduction
• Corda: A Distributed Ledger (A.K.A. the Technical White Paper)

Explanations of the key concepts are also available as videos.