# Introduction **Welcome to the Fractal Whitepaper.** Fractal is a decentralized neural network for hyper-scale distributed data processing. It has applications across countless markets and sectors because of its millisecond transaction commit speed and impenetrable data security. Fractal can route, process, encrypt, and validate an immutable transaction in approximately 300 milliseconds. Blockchain-based solutions take roughly one hour to commit a similar transaction. The chasm between Blockchain and Fractal is both exceedingly vast and deeply profound, to the point that it’s almost immeasurable. The performance and security disparity Fractal has over blockchain has been seen as completely unfair and no contest. **Next whitepaper section:** [[01. Abstract]]