Crypto Decrypted

12The Byzantine Generals Problem

The Byzantine Generals Problem is one of history's top 10 computer science problems, and this chapter will go into detail about what the problem is and how blockchain technology solves it. Most people don't understand that this is the root, so we feel that if you have your arms around this, you have taken a giant leap in your understanding of why blockchains are relevant.

The problem asks how any network can come to consensus without a trusted third party or central authority. For the past 50 years, there was no way to get to consensus without having that trusted third party. Bitcoin and blockchain solve this problem in such an innovative way that new things are now possible in many areas, including money and currency. We'll keep it light and fun.

Some Other  Top Computer Science Problems

There's been a list of top computer science problems going back to the early days of the computer. Many of the problems on that list have been there for decades. We have waited to solve the Byzantine Generals Problem for over four decades, so when a solution did come in 2009, it was surprising how little fanfare greeted the proposal.

Other top computer science problems that are still on the list include things like:

• An optimal solution for a binary tree search algorithm—how to find the solution the fastest within a sorted data structure
• Computational complexity—how to classify and optimize computational problems according to their resource usage
• Optimal ...