Main consensus mechanisms and difference between them 🔍

The consensus mechanisms are the rules according to which blocks are generated in the blockchain. There are many types of them: some mechanisms allow you to build reliable decentralized system, others — blockchains with high bandwidth and scalability.

In order to assess the prospects of a particular blockchain project, it is important to understand their differences.

Today we will talk about the main three consensus mechanisms:

👉🏻 Proof of Work (PoW) is the first consensus mechanism that determines which blocks will be added to the chain after mining. Its main goal is to prevent coin reuse.

👉🏻 Proof of Stake (PoS) is an alternative to PoW created to address its main shortcomings: low speed of work and poor network scalability. The transaction is verified by the validators with the largest number of coins and the age of the stake.

👉🏻 Delegated proof of stake (DPoS) is a type of PoS, similar to the representative democracy of modern countries. In DPoS systems, participants use their tokens to select validators who validate and add blocks for reward.

In short, the main difference between PoS, DPoS and PoW mechanisms is the principle of choosing a participant who will get the right to add a new block to the chain.

Of course, these mechanisms are basis and most popular but far not the only ones. We will talk about the rest soon.