# Core Concepts

Build an understanding of the core concepts behind how Nibiru Chain works. Dive into essential concepts like accounts, smart contracts as executable code, runtimes, and blockchain virtual machines, acquiring the foundational knowledge necessary to leverage the full potential of Web3.

Concept Description
Transaction Messages (TxMsgs) Atomic state transitions that make up a transaction. Transactions collectively form a block.
Blocks The consensus engine chronicles a sequence of blocks affirmed by a supermajority of nodes. These blocks form the blockchain, a digital ledger replicated across all nodes.
Gas on Nibiru Chain Gas on Nibiru Chain represents the amount of computational effort required to execute specific operations on the state machine.
Block Events Block events are responses emitted during the execution of transaction messages. Events make human-readble information more readily available for clients and indexers without directly affecting the state of the blockchain.
Consensus Engine The consensus engine describes the mechanism used in Nibiru Chain to validate and agree on the state of the distributed ledger.