Summary

At this point, you should have a solid foundation in the different mechanisms that blockchains use to reach consensus. Each consensus algorithm makes certain trade-offs between speed, availability, consistency, and fault tolerance. The most common consensus mechanisms are still PoW and PoS, but blockchain development continues at a very rapid pace, and new and improved approaches are likely to be developed. Improvements to consensus algorithms will improve blockchain scalability and reliability, and the scope of the potential applications for the technology.