The Evolution Of Blockchain Consensus Mechanism

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INTRODUCTION

So basically the introduction of blockchain technology has opened the gate and allowed for the introduction of many other useful and innovative technologies and invention, the blockchain technology initially was built to aid and support cryptocurrency particularly the Bitcoin however it was not all complete without what we know today as the consensus mechanisms.

We can say that the consensus mechanism is basically a protocol which was embedded or built into the blockchain algorithm so as to ensure a kind of consensus or agreement on the state of the blockchain amongst its distributed nodes, luckily for us the function of the consensus mechanism doesn't stop there it goes further so address issues of security, scalability and decentralization in the blockchain network.

In this post of mine I will be explaining and discussing some of the key and significant steps consensus mechanisms has taken over the years to evolve, grow, adapt and function the way it does today in the blockchain network and ecosystem.

• THE PROOF OF WORK

The proof of work consensus mechanism was the first or foremost of all the consensus mechanisms to be created, it was introduced together with the lunch of Bitcoin itself that is in the year 2009, how the proof of work consensus mechanism works is that miners are given cryptographic puzzles to solve so as to facilitate the addition of new blocks to the blockchain.

In the proof of work consensus mechanism the new blocks on the blockchain are created or added by the cryptocurrency miner who first complete the given cryptographic puzzle, the proof of work consensus mechanism was well known because it was very secure.

It was very hard or not profitable for attackers to take advantage or to compromise the security of a blockchain network which operated on proof of work consensus however, it was important for the blockchain to evolve or move past the proof of work because it created concerns as a result of its high energy consumption.

• THEN THE PROOF OF STAKE

If you recall we ended the previous paragraph by saying or implying that the proof of work consensus was not sustainable in terms of it's usage of energy therefore, the proof of stake consensus mechanism was created to address the issue of high energy consumption, we can say that it is the second step in the evolution of consensus mechanisms in general.

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The proof of stake consensus mechanism makes use of validators instead of miners, how it works is that thes validators chosen at random will have to stake their cryptocurrency holdings as collateral so has to have the opportunity to partake in the validation of new blocks into the blockchain.

• DELEGATED PROOF OF STAKE

There was not any major concern about the proof of stake consensus mechanism at least not concerning its sustainability and long time viability so we can assume that the creation of the delegated proof of stake is another step In the evolution of consensus mechanism meant to just serve the purpose of growth and innovation in the blockchain or to improve security and user experience.

How the delegated proof of stake consensus mechanism works that can be considered as different or a refined version of the proof of stake consensus is that it makes use of or employs delegates who are basically in charge of the validation of transactions on the blockchain.

The delegated proof of stake consensus mechanism ensures the maintenance of integrity and trust in its network, by basically making sure that it's delegates do not partake in any kind of fraudulent or malicious activities, it does this by ensuring each delegate is accountable for his actions and is to be punished or discarded in any case of failure to carry out their duties effectively.

• HYBRID CONSENSUS MECHANISMS

The last of the steps taken in the evolution of consensus mechanisms in the blockchain network which I will be writing about today is the introduction of the Hybrid consensus mechanism, this is a consensus mechanism that basically merges or combines the features of two or more consensus mechanism as a result having greater everything in just one consensus mechanism.

It is common logic that two or three is better than one so by merging or combining certain features of different consensus the hybrid consensus is able to eliminate the weaknesses of the consensus mechanisms,

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and in the same process increase their are strength like in terms of security, scalability and efficiency, also the hybrid consensus will be flexible and adaptive having features that was distributed amongst multiple consensus mechanisms.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, this post contains the different innovative types of consensus mechanism which was created in the blockchain ecosystem which are the, proof of work consensus, proof of stake and the hybrid consensus mechanism.