SteemitCryptoAcademy: Consensus Algorithms@ alphafx || Proof of Capacity

Introduction

Hello everyone, today, I will be writing on Stellar Consensus Protocol. After reading the lecture from professor @alphafx, I will be explaining in details all you have to know about Stellar Consensus protocol.

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Stellar consensus protocol

In 2015, David Mazieres introduced the stellar consensus protocol. Consensus is an agreement between many nodes or validating nodes in a network. It allows the nodes to work on a leaderless networks of computer which makes them have the same outcome in a certain network with the use of a byzantine agreement system.

Consensus protocol might be hard to understand whereas it is easy to use because all it wants is just an agreement being put in place between a series of nodes in a consistent network. SCP ensures the payment transaction history of all participants to be viewed in a consistent view.

Stellar consensus consist of two main properties which are safety and Liveness.

Safety

There must be safety on any transacting network in case any bad wants to happen, there should also be a safety protocol to prevent it from happening and this may occur when a particular network doesn’t agree with the same ledger.

Liveness

Liveness is a good sign that the computing network meaning the ledger will always accurate, responsive and also accept future transaction.

Proof of work

This is protocol where network nodes compete with computing powers mostly to solve puzzles which are mostly cryptographic puzzles. Ethereum and Bitcoins also uses proof of work to access consensus And this was brought into limelight in the year 2009.

Agreement system

In this agreement systems, a group of participants are giving the opportunity to reach the same decision on what they want at a particular time example where to go for lunch. A distributive system networks using any agreement system must be fault tolerant meaning its results must be correct and consistent even though at times there are signs of communication errors or disordered message.

Byzantine agreement is also another fault tolerant where its nodes mostly gives incorrect information and this may be caused mostly by an attempt to divert the system or caused by a glitch of error. A quorum is introduced and formed in other to make it impossible for the byzantine agreement to work on a particular node. They also make sure other nodes agree with their decision and with theses they form a network called voting bloc.
Byzantine fault tolerance gives a set of people or group to trust their decision even though most of them may not be following the rules and decision made for use.

Federated voting

This is a procedure which is based mainly on proposal agreement thereby making it known whether a network of participants can work together on the same proposal. The nodes mustn’t choose another outcome because each nodes have the capacity to work together on possible value outcome. In other to believe the nodes actually worked together, messages are sent back and forth through the nodes in other to confirm they are in good voting terms and they accept the same vote.

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Quorum and quorum slices

When using a decentralized network. There is no way you can determine how many nodes are working in a network, in other to solve that there was an introduction and invention of what we call the quorum slice which works as a collection of message conveyers that the nodes used in conveying of confidential messages mostly about hoe voting are done in the remaining computing networks.

Voting, accepting and confirming

A node optionally cast a vote for some value which may be V, whereas it may be broadcasting a message through its network letting the others know that a particular node N whose quorum slice Q and I vote for V. there is a probability and a promise that it won’t ever vote against V and will stay by its words. This shows that voting is a thing of trust and some nodes will get a notification.

Advantages of Stellar Consensus Protocol

• It allows leaderless consensus where anyone can participate in the validation of networks

• Stellar Consensus Protocol uses Byzantine Fault Tolerance in its consensus protocol ensuring the blockchain is secured even when a large number of nodes are inactive or acting wrongly.

• Speed is another advantage of the Stellar Consensus Protocol, transactions are completed in few seconds.

Conclusion

I am glad I was able to participate in this assignment. Writing about Stellar Consensus Protocol has made me do a lot of research and understand ho the consensus protocol works.