# DFINITY Technology Overview Series, Consensus System

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.04548 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04548/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 11 May 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Local Graph-homomorphic Processing for Privatized Distributed Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15414/) (2022)
- [GPSPiChain-Blockchain based Self-Contained Family Security System in Smart Home](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.06884/) (2021)
- [A Survey on Blockchain-based Supply Chain Finance with Progress and Future directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.08915/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The DFINITY blockchain computer provides a secure, performant and flexible consensus mechanism. At its core, DFINITY contains a decentralized randomness beacon which acts as a verifiable random function (VRF) that produces a stream of outputs over time. The novel technique behind the beacon relies on the existence of a unique-deterministic, non-interactive, DKG-friendly threshold signatures scheme. The only known examples of such a scheme are pairing-based and derived from BLS. The DFINITY blockchain is layered on top of the DFINITY beacon and uses the beacon as its source of randomness for leader selection and leader ranking. A "weight" is attributed to a chain based on the ranks of the leaders who propose the blocks in the chain, and that weight is used to select between competing chains. The DFINITY blockchain is layered on top of the DFINITY beacon and uses the beacon as its source of randomness for leader selection and leader ranking blockchain is further hardened by a notarization process which dramatically improves the time to finality and eliminates the nothing-at-stake and selfish mining attacks. DFINITY consensus algorithm is made to scale through continuous quorum selections driven by the random beacon. In practice, DFINITY achieves block times of a few seconds and transaction finality after only two confirmations. The system gracefully handles temporary losses of network synchrony including network splits, while it is provably secure under synchrony.