Understanding how Avalanche Consensus works
To further grasp how Avalanche disturbs the space, let’s first examine how consensus has historically been produced. One of the most crucial aspects of a distributed computing system is a consensus protocol, which describes how a system or group of computers agrees on something. Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak, and Marshall Pease, three computer scientists, outlined the issue that consensus protocols are intended to address in their seminal article, “The Byzantine Generals Problem.”
In this essay, the difficulty of coming to an agreement is discussed using the example of a group of Byzantine generals who have surrounded a city and must decide when to launch an attack. They will triumph if they assault simultaneously; if not, they will lose.
The generals may only speak with one another through messengers, though, and some of them might be corrupt and attempt to mislead the others. The Byzantine Generals Problem poses the question of how obedient generals may come to an agreement in this circumstance. The study by Lamport, Shostak, and Pease demonstrates that as long as two thirds of the generals maintain their loyalty, consensus may be reached.
In what is now referred to as “classical consensus,” computer scientists Lamport and Barbara Liskov created the first practical solution to this issue. The speed at which classical consensus protocols reach finality—the point at which a state cannot be changed or reversed—is one of their main advantages. The fact that every node in the network has to be acquainted with every other node is a significant drawback of these systems. This implies that the system has to be permissioned and comparatively tiny.
This implies that traditional consensus systems are likewise not scalable, as scaling demands that there be so many nodes that it becomes impossible to know every single node. For this reason, classical consensus, while very helpful in some private situations, could not sustain a scale system like that needed for a cryptocurrency.
Classical Consensus and Nakamoto Consensus were the only options available for a very long period. Subsequently, Avalanche emerged, expanding upon the research presented in ‘Snowflake to Avalanche: A Novel Metastable Consensus Protocol Family for Cryptocurrencies,’ a whitepaper authored by Team Rocket, which remained unidentified.
Avalanche Consensus is a revolutionary, leaderless blockchain that is scalable, reliable, and environmentally friendly by combining the best features of both Classical Consensus and Nakamoto Consensus. Avalanche Consensus performs better than the other consensus techniques in several important areas when contrasted with the issues mentioned above.
First of all, transactions are swift and complete in around two seconds because to its low latency and speedy finality. This makes it possible for it to operate as a useful worldwide currency for daily usage. Referring back to the previous example of purchasing a drink at a shop, you can leave in two seconds using Avalanche compared to up to an hour using Bitcoin. Its high throughput, which may support up to 1000–10,000 tps, enables it to maintain speed even with a large user base.
Additionally, Avalanche has a tremendous scalability, scaling from 10,000 nodes to perhaps ten million nodes. The only reason Avalanche can support this type of scalability—which is essential for a network that is serious about sustaining a worldwide currency—is that, in contrast to conventional systems, it is resilient and does not require permission for participation from individuals.
