What Are Consensus Mechanisms in Blockchain and Cryptocurrency?
Investopedia contributors come from a range of backgrounds, and over 25 years there have been thousands of expert writers and editors who have contributed. Investopedia / Lara Antal A consensus mechanism is the programming and process used in blockchain systems to achieve distributed agreement about the ledger's state or the state of a data set. Cryptocurrencies, blockchains, and distributed ledgers benefit from their use because consensus mechanisms replace much slower and sometimes inaccurate or untrustworthy human verifiers and auditors. When computers and networks began gaining popularity in the 1980s and 90s, shared databases were created so that multiple users could access the information they stored. Most had a centralized database with permissions that users accessed from different workstations. This setup evolved into centralized networks with administrators who granted user rights and maintained the integrity of the data. Some of these shared databases developed into programs
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