diff --git a/docs/server/source/appendices/cryptography.md b/docs/server/source/appendices/cryptography.md
index 3c0a9297..ecbd3c7e 100644
--- a/docs/server/source/appendices/cryptography.md
+++ b/docs/server/source/appendices/cryptography.md
@@ -8,31 +8,69 @@ as described in [the section on JSON serialization](json-serialization.html).
 
 ## Hashes
 
-We compute hashes using the SHA3-256 algorithm and
-[pysha3](https://bitbucket.org/tiran/pykeccak) as the Python implementation. We
-store the hex-encoded hash in the database. For example:
+BigchainDB computes transaction and block hashes using an implementation of the
+[SHA3-256](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-3)
+algorithm provided by the
+[**pysha3** package](https://bitbucket.org/tiran/pykeccak),
+which is a wrapper around the optimized reference implementation
+from [http://keccak.noekeon.org](http://keccak.noekeon.org).
+
+Here's the relevant code from `bigchaindb/bigchaindb/common/crypto.py`
+(as of 11 December 2016):
 
 ```python
-import hashlib
-# monkey patch hashlib with sha3 functions
 import sha3
 
-data = "message"
-tx_hash = hashlib.sha3_256(data).hexdigest()
+def hash_data(data):
+    """Hash the provided data using SHA3-256"""
+    return sha3.sha3_256(data.encode()).hexdigest()
 ```
 
+The incoming `data` is understood to be a Python 3 string,
+which may contain Unicode characters such as `'ü'` or `'字'`.
+The Python 3 `encode()` method converts `data` to a bytes object.
+`sha3.sha3_256(data.encode())` is a _sha3.SHA3 object;
+the `hexdigest()` method converts it to a hexadecimal string.
+For example:
+
+```python
+>>> import sha3
+>>> data = '字'
+>>> sha3.sha3_256(data.encode()).hexdigest()
+'c67820de36d949a35ca24492e15767e2972b22f77213f6704ac0adec123c5690'
+```
+
+Note: Hashlocks (which are one kind of crypto-condition)
+may use a different hash function.
+
+
 ## Signature Algorithm and Keys
 
 BigchainDB uses the [Ed25519](https://ed25519.cr.yp.to/) public-key signature
 system for generating its public/private key pairs. Ed25519 is an instance of
 the [Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm
-(EdDSA)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EdDSA). As of April 2016, EdDSA was in
-["Internet-Draft" status with the
-IETF](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-irtf-cfrg-eddsa-05) but was [already
+(EdDSA)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EdDSA). As of December 2016, EdDSA was an
+["Internet-Draft" with the
+IETF](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-irtf-cfrg-eddsa-08) but was [already
 widely used](https://ianix.com/pub/ed25519-deployment.html).
 
-BigchainDB uses the the [ed25519](https://github.com/warner/python-ed25519)
-Python package, overloaded by the [cryptoconditions
-library](https://github.com/bigchaindb/cryptoconditions).
+BigchainDB uses the the 
+[**cryptoconditions** package](https://github.com/bigchaindb/cryptoconditions)
+to do signature and keypair-related calculations.
+That package, in turn, uses the [**PyNaCl** package](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/PyNaCl),
+a Python binding to the Networking and Cryptography (NaCl) library.
 
-All keys are represented with the base58 encoding by default.
+All keys are represented with
+[a Base58 encoding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base58).
+The cryptoconditions package uses the
+[**base58** package](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/base58)
+to calculate a Base58 encoding.
+(There's no standard for Base58 encoding.)
+Here's an example public/private key pair:
+
+```js
+"keypair": {
+    "public": "9WYFf8T65bv4S8jKU8wongKPD4AmMZAwvk1absFDbYLM",
+    "private": "3x7MQpPq8AEUGEuzAxSVHjU1FhLWVQJKFNNkvHhJPGCX"
+}
+```