What are different types of Consensus protocol?

The Blockchain ecosystem has grown beyond every imagination and today, new Blockchains are being introduced in the market like videos on YouTube.

Every blockchain brings with it, a different approach, innovation, and enhancements. But at their core, all these Blockchains are dependent on one thing, the consensus mechanism.. The consensus in the blockchain is an indispensable idea that fundamentally underpins the protocol all alone. It is the reason why Blockchain has been able to succeed in the current system.

There are different types of Consensus protocol based on the requirements of a particular blockchain. The primary reason for the existence of Consensus is to accomplish concession to concurred transactions over the Blockchain network

They sit at the center of this revolutionary technology, enabling a transparent ecosystem and eradicating the need for a third party. Let’s have a look at a few popular consensus algorithms:

Proof of Work:

The first consensus protocol introduced to us and implemented in the Bitcoin Blockchain is Proof of Work. This protocol guarantees that the following block in a blockchain is the unparalleled variant of reality, and it shields the network from crashing down. The consensus mechanism works on the principle of solving a complex mathematical puzzle and the person who solves it is called a miner. This puzzle has a key role in establishing the validity of a transaction. The miners help to check each Bitcoin transaction which includes creating a hash-based connection between subsequent blocks usually referred to as cryptographical link in chronological order..

Proof of stake:

PoS depends on the coin numbers that a client stakes. The more coins a client stakes, the higher the probability he can deal with the following block. The award for the forger is the transaction expenses. This protocol has become extremely popular and the main reason for that is that it consumes significantly less computational power than PoW. Variants like pure proof of stake or delegated proof of stake have also surfaced.

Delegated Proof of Stake:

In DPoS, clients can either cast a vote themselves or give this power to another client who then acts on their behalf. Casting a vote here symbolizes validating a transaction on the Blockchain network. The chosen clients are also referred to as witnesses and are responsible for making blocks by confirming the transactions. As soon as the validators confirm and sign all the transactions in a block, they get rewards which are usually shared with their individual electors. If a validator neglects to confirm the transactions in the given time period, all the transactions are left unconfirmed and no rewards are dispersed. In such a scenario, the validator ends up losing their stake so they are obligated to confirm the transaction.

Proof of Authority:

PoA is the consensus algorithm that gives the ability to verify the blocks and transactions of an organization, to a limited number of blockchain users (block validators).

Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance:

PBFT relies upon the number of nodes to arrive at a consensus. The PBFT works with having members affirm messages sent to them by running a calculation. This gives a choice about the message’s legitimacy. The members communicate their choice to different nodes, which, at that point, helps reach a mutual decision based on the choice. An ultimate decision relies upon the choices made by different nodes.

Proof of elapsed time:

PoEt works similar to the proof of work, yet burns-through undeniably less power. Further, rather than having members tackle a cryptographic riddle, the calculation utilizes a trusted execution environment (TEE) to guarantee blocks get delivered in an arbitrary lottery style.

Directed acyclic graph:

DAG is the third advancement of Blockchain and, as per chart hypothesis, it is a limited directed graph. Even though it doesn’t have directed cycles, DAG permits various transactions on different chains all at once. This opens the potential for Blockchain to perform all the transactions in a split second and at least expense.

Proof of capacity:

POC creates informational collections known as plots that a user can store on the hard drive. more the plots, better the opportunity of finding the following block in the chain. One can make copy blocks and fork the network.

Conclusion

Consensus plays a crucial role in defining the resource consumption, transaction throughput, and the overall performance of Blockchain among several other performance indicators. Therefore, It becomes extremely important to choose the right consensus protocol for a Blockchain network.