A consensus mechanism is a fault-tolerant mechanism used in computing and blockchain systems to achieve the necessary agreement on a single data value.
Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology rely on consensus mechanisms to function.
The goal of a consensus mechanism is to prevent bad actors from deliberately cheating.
Consensus mechanisms solve the double-spending problem by making it expensive and difficult to propose a new block of validated transactions.
There are different consensus mechanism algorithms, each working on different principles.
Proof of Work (PoW) is a common consensus algorithm used by the most popular cryptocurrency networks such as Bitcoin and Litecoin.
Proof of Stake (PoS) is another common consensus algorithm developed as a low-cost, low-power alternative to the PoW algorithm.
