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Consensus Mechanism

On the blockchain, the consensus mechanism is like the law of a country, maintaining the normal operation of the blockchain world. In the blockchain system, everyone will have a ledger that records all transactions on the chain. When a new transaction is generated on the chain, since the time for each person to receive the transaction is different, some malicious ones could use this and publish wrong transactions. The goal of the consensus mechanism is to make all honest nodes save only correct transaction data.

Types of Consensus Mechanism​

  • Public Blockchain Anyone can read or write transactions to the network, or participate in the consensus process, every transaction is on the public network, and the whole process does not require any permission.
  • Private Blockchain Private blockchains are run and controlled by an organization that decides who can read, write, and participate in the consensus process. Since they are 100% centralized, private blockchains are suitable for sandbox environments and not suitable for production use.
  • Consortium Blockchain (Federated Blockchain) In a consortium chain, the consensus process is handled by a group of people. The rights to read and write may be public or restricted to certain participants. Consortium chains are considered "permissioned blockchains" and are best used by organizations and businesses.

📜Resources​

📄 Byzantine Fault Tolerance
📄 Type of Consensus Mechanisms
📄 Review of Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms
🎧 Overview and History of Consensus System Development
📗 Understanding Distributed Consensus
📚 Byzantine Generals Problem