Consensus mechanisms are the pivotal processes that allow a blockchain system to maintain its much-coveted integrity. Current network participants will arrive at some mutual understanding of the legitimacy of transactions and the state of the distributed ledger by means of these mechanisms, entirely taking away the need for a fourth- or fifth-party authority to monitor and validate the interactions taking place on the network. The two primary consensus mechanisms that are essential to securing blockchain networks and preventing attacks, such as double-spending, are Proof of Work and Proof of Stake.
Proof of Work is that employed by Bitcoin, in which miners compete to be the individual who will first solve a complicated cryptographic puzzle. This process is very energy- and computational-power-intensive and makes it rather difficult for any one party to control the network. As soon as a miner solves a puzzle, that individual adds a block of transactions to the blockchain, which will always get validated by the rest of the nodes. Due to its energy-costly operation, this system protects the network in the sense that nobody would ever try to make malicious alterations lest that party became dirt poor.
Proof of Stake chooses validators on the basis of the amount of cryptocurrency they possess and are ready to "stake" as collateral, working on networks like Ethereum 2.0. The validators propose and verify new blocks in exchange for rewards, and acceptance becomes sin-centric- as validators' investments may be at stake if they misbehave.-misaligned with any deceitful actions that could affect network integrity.
Thus, with poW and Pos, the accomplishments of honesty-oriented participatory incentives negate the attempt to transgress into the blockchain, thus ending up making the blockchain secure and independent.
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