Mastering Blockchain - Second Edition

Consensus in blockchain

Consensus is a distributed computing concept that has been used in blockchain in order to provide a means of agreeing to a single version of the truth by all peers on the blockchain network. This concept was previously discussed in the distributed systems section of this chapter. In this section, we will address consensus in the context of blockchain technology. Some concepts presented here are still relevant to distributed systems theory, but they are explained from a blockchain perspective.

Roughly, the following describes the two main categories of consensus mechanisms:

• Proof-based, leader-election lottery based, or the Nakamoto consensus whereby a leader is elected at random (using an algorithm) and proposes a ...