<p>I always thought it refers to the method of resolving conflicts <strong>within</strong> a blockchain network's consensus specification:</p>
<p>If there are multiple versions of blocks that are <strong>deemed valid by nodes consensus rules</strong>, but trying to extend the chain from the same ascendant block, then the version with highest cumulative proof-of-work (blockchain tip's <code>chainwork</code>) shall be considered as the correct version.</p>
<p>That's it.</p>
<p>All other uses of the term &quot;Nakamoto Consensus&quot; are abusing the term. It's NOT a governance method or anything like that.</p>
<p>Nodes running a consensus-breaking specification would simply ignore PoW of the other chain and create a hard-fork, where each blockchain network would have their own Nakamoto Consensus game, and not affecting each other.</p>
<p>If they shared the PoW algorithm, then the networks would be bidding for the same kinds of hashes, e.g. sha256d miners would allocate their hash-rate to find balance with sha256d networks block rewards market value.
This is simply a free-market mechanism and NOT Nakamoto Consensus.</p>
<p>PoW miners are providers of hashes, blockchain networks are buyers of hashes. It's a business transaction. Every fee-paying transaction is a business transaction with a miner, of course they'd mine their own transactions - after all, each transaction is a payment for their hashes on top of the block reward subsidy.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-05-14T08:11:55.693Z
2023-05-14T08:18:14.517Z
2023-05-14T08:18:14.517Z
bca-0353f40e
<p>From this article: <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-the-nakamoto-consensus" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-the-nakamoto-consensus</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Prior to Satoshi’s creation of the Nakamoto Consensus, Byzantine Fault
Tolerance was used in peer-to-peer networks to maintain their
authenticity for a variety of cryptography-related projects, and even
some early forms of digital currency.</p>
<p>However, there were problems — in just a Byzantine Fault Tolerant
system, the voting system for consensus requires a rotating election
of leaders. If a leader acted maliciously, as leaders are known to do,
then they could be removed from the network by a vote from the other
nodes. In the case of Bitcoin (and for the idea of a digital currency
in general) this individual removal of leaders through a voting
process would pose a huge problem when it came to scaling.</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-05-19T17:30:39.557Z
2022-05-19T17:30:39.557Z
djangofan
<p>I sometimes hear that bitcoin's key innovation was the Nakamoto Consensus, which solves the double-spend problem without the need for trusted third-party intermediaries.</p>
<p>I take Nakamoto Consensus to mean the bitcoin consensus mechanism, so it includes the proof of work process, the difficulty adjustments and any other rule code into bitcoin.</p>
<p>Am I correct here? It would be interesting to figure out who coined the term 'Nakamoto Consensus'. This may shed some light on this topic.</p>

<proof-of-work><consensus><terminology><history>
Is there a consensus as to what is meant by 'Nakamoto Consensus'?
StatsScared
# Is there a consensus as to what is meant by 'Nakamoto Consensus'?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-05-15)

I sometimes hear that bitcoin's key innovation was the Nakamoto Consensus, which solves the double-spend problem without the need for trusted third-party intermediaries.

I take Nakamoto Consensus to mean the bitcoin consensus mechanism, so it includes the proof of work process, the difficulty adjustments and any other rule code into bitcoin.

Am I correct here? It would be interesting to figure out who coined the term 'Nakamoto Consensus'. This may shed some light on this topic.

**Tags:** proof-of-work, consensus, terminology, history


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2023-05-14. Score: 1

I always thought it refers to the method of resolving conflicts **within** a blockchain network's consensus specification:

If there are multiple versions of blocks that are **deemed valid by nodes consensus rules**, but trying to extend the chain from the same ascendant block, then the version with highest cumulative proof-of-work (blockchain tip's `chainwork`) shall be considered as the correct version.

That's it.

All other uses of the term "Nakamoto Consensus" are abusing the term. It's NOT a governance method or anything like that.

Nodes running a consensus-breaking specification would simply ignore PoW of the other chain and create a hard-fork, where each blockchain network would have their own Nakamoto Consensus game, and not affecting each other.

If they shared the PoW algorithm, then the networks would be bidding for the same kinds of hashes, e.g. sha256d miners would allocate their hash-rate to find balance with sha256d networks block rewards market value.
This is simply a free-market mechanism and NOT Nakamoto Consensus.

PoW miners are providers of hashes, blockchain networks are buyers of hashes. It's a business transaction. Every fee-paying transaction is a business transaction with a miner, of course they'd mine their own transactions - after all, each transaction is a payment for their hashes on top of the block reward subsidy.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2022-05-19. Score: -1

From this article: <https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-the-nakamoto-consensus>

> Prior to Satoshi’s creation of the Nakamoto Consensus, Byzantine Fault
> Tolerance was used in peer-to-peer networks to maintain their
> authenticity for a variety of cryptography-related projects, and even
> some early forms of digital currency.
>
> However, there were problems — in just a Byzantine Fault Tolerant
> system, the voting system for consensus requires a rotating election
> of leaders. If a leader acted maliciously, as leaders are known to do,
> then they could be removed from the network by a vote from the other
> nodes. In the case of Bitcoin (and for the idea of a digital currency
> in general) this individual removal of leaders through a voting
> process would pose a huge problem when it came to scaling.


---

