Optimistic Democracy Consensus Mechanism

GenLayer stands out with its unique consensus mechanism called Optimistic Democracy. This mechanism uses the Equivalence Principle and a structured appeal process to reach consensus on subjective and non-deterministic transactions.

How the Optimistic Democracy Mechanism Work

When a transactions is submitted on GenLayer, a randomly selected group of five validators is assigned to verify each transaction. However, you can adjust the number of validators for your specific projects, allowing for higher security guarantees.

When a transaction is submitted to the network, one of the selected validators is chosen as the leader. The leader executes the transaction and proposes an output, which the other validators then evaluate using the Equivalence Principles set by the developer. The number of validators is always odd, ensuring a consensus is reached.

If a majority of the validators agree with the leader’s outputs, the transaction is considered valid. This ensures that while the outputs may not be identical, they are equivalent within the project’s requirements.

Once a transaction has gone through the Optimistic Execution process and without any necessary appeals, it reaches a state of Finality. Unlike Ethereum, where finality is typically reached within 6–12 minutes, GenLayer allows for a more extended validation period to accommodate appeals, enhancing reliability.

For more detailed information, refer to the concept section.