Nakamoto Consensus

Nakamoto Consensus is a consensus mechanism that states that the valid chain is the longest chain with the most accumulated proof-of-work. It is a probabilistic consensus mechanism based upon which miner can solve a computation puzzle the fastest. The problem miners solve is a trivial but computationally intensive hash function (SHA-256) where they attempt to generate a cryptographic hash less than the target difficultly level specified by the protocol. Once a valid hash has been found a miner has the right to broadcast the candidate block to the rest of the network for verification. If the block is valid within the consensus rules, then the miner receives a block reward. The solution is easily verifiable and impossible to forge since finding the solution requires energy expenditure. Thus, the longest chain is considered valid because it came from the largest pool of computational power. Nakamoto Consensus is probabilistic because there is always a chance that a new, longer competing chain could emerge with more accumulated proof-of-work, that would invalidate the current chain.

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