Orca Crypto
Technology term

Consensus

How a distributed network agrees on which transactions are valid and in what order.

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Updated 2026-08-303 min readDefinition
Definition

How a distributed network agrees on which transactions are valid and in what order.

Consensus is the mechanism that lets thousands of independent computers agree without a coordinator. It answers who gets to add the next block and how disagreements resolve.

Proof of work spends electricity to make attacks expensive. Proof of stake requires capital at risk instead. Both make dishonesty cost more than it pays.

In practice

Bitcoin uses proof of work. Ethereum switched to proof of stake in 2022, cutting energy use by more than 99 percent.

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