Consensus Mechanism

• Uses Proof of History.
• Blocks are produced by a limited set of validators (Around 1970 as of Aug 2022).
• Validators form the backbone of Solana’s network.
• Validators can earn SOL for helping secure the Solana network.
• A Solana cluster is a set of validators working together to serve client transactions and maintain the integrity of the ledger. Many clusters may coexist. When two clusters share a common genesis block, they attempt to converge. Otherwise, they simply ignore the existence of the other. Transactions sent to the wrong one are quietly rejected.
• Designed for quick confirmation of the current sequence produced by the Proof of History generator, for voting and selecting the next Proof of History generator, and for punishing any misbehaving validators.

Terminology

• Bonds: Bonds are equivalent to a capital expense in Proof of Work. A miner buys hardware and electricity, and commits it to a single branch in a Proof of Work blockchain. A bond is coin that the validator commits as collateral while they are validating transactions.
• Slashing: When a proof of voting for a different branch is published, that branch can destroy the validators bond. This is an economic incentive designed to discourage validators from confirming multiple branches.
• Super Majority A super majority is 2/3rds of the validators weighted by their bonds. A super majority vote indicates that the network has reached consensus, and at least 1/3rd of the network would have had to vote maliciously for this branch to be invalid. This would put the economic cost of an attack at 1/3rd of the market cap of the coin.