If you want to introduce Xiaobai to the most important "consensus mechanism" of cryptocurrency in one sentence, my answer will be: This is a game of power.

Any organization (group) in this world wants to achieve Nash balance with minimal game consumption.

(Nash balance, also known as non-cooperative balance, is an important concept of game theory. If no participant can act alone to increase revenue in a situation, then this strategy combination is called Nash equilibrium point)

To put it simply, I hope that everyone can be as consistent as possible (that is, to achieve certain consensus). At this time, the choices that everyone makes are the best choices that everyone can make, so that no one will do things in the middle.

Our traditional centralized world is PoP (Proof of Power). Whoever can get the token that represents Power, who can become the center for at least some time, let the world run. If everyone recognizes the center, there will be less cost of the game, and everyone will unite as one.

But the problem of centralization, not much to say here, everyone is deeply touched.

In the decentralized world, there is no way to PoP, and a center is not allowed. So, who will decide the direction of the community? Who will share the benefits of the community? Who will manage the community?

Therefore, all the consensus mechanisms of cryptocurrency are to solve the "Byzantine general problem". Interested friends can search this question. The simple explanation is that when everyone wants to achieve the best result, but How can we achieve the best results when everyone does not trust each other and the communication is not timely?

Take the classic rights tour as a metaphor. For everyone in the play, it is everyone’s common interest to fight against the enemy in the north. We all know this. But they didn't think so. Xuenu shouted to the end of the world and then believed him. He decided to fight against the enemy in the north, but he also played a small abacus in his heart, and finally did not really unite. .

Under such circumstances, a solution can be finally achieved through continuous gaming. If it is settled, talk about consensus.

What should I do if I don’t talk? I can only play one.

This is also the reason why the centralized world has to play one game at a time, because when everyone is caught in a game environment, there will always be a situation where it is not appropriate to talk about it. When the Opium War was in the past, the British wanted to do business in our business. We didn't open the door. In the end, we used the cannon to open our door. It was excessive, but who made you weak?

So why does cryptocurrency require a consensus mechanism? Because everyone needs a mechanism to keep everyone in a "consensus" state, and to unite the community in one direction, and no one will try to get higher by attacking the system or doing something else. The benefit - because he can't do it.

How does Bitcoin, the world's most successful decentralized system, run successfully?

When Nakamoto was designing it, he fully considered the game of the community in the future and avoided the emergence of centralization.

First of all, how to ensure the security of the Bitcoin system? The PoW mechanism, everyone knows, mining. In fact, there is a big security risk in mining, which is "51% attack." In fact, the 51% attack does not require 51% of the power, but the name is more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

There are two situations in PoW mining: First, the bitcoin price is very low, which means that the computing power is very low, the attack cost is very low, but no one is interested in the company; the second is the high price, the attack cost is very high, no It is necessary for people to attack.

Nakamoto said a word: "Bitcoin is either very valuable for everyone, or no one is worthless, no intermediate situation." Because bitcoin enters the positive cycle of "the number of users is increasing - the price is getting higher and higher - the computing power is getting higher and higher" will not stop, if not entered, it will fail in the early stage.

"As long as the system has passed the initial difficult stage, then this self-enhanced cycle capability can continue to flow into the torrent as the Bitcoin system grows bigger. Nakamoto does not need to make any claims at all. Bitcoin It’s already a huge thing. If the system itself is smart and pursues its own interests, then once the system’s setters have set the rules, the whole system will not converge in a certain direction with the will of the human being.” The paragraph completely describes the advantages of PoW.

Obviously, we have entered such a positive cycle.

(But it's hard to get started with PoW, and a lot of new cryptocurrencies don't want to be "too decentralized," so this obviously better model was not popular with PoS later.)

Then, mining can get a lot of bitcoin rewards, will it form a centralization? In the design of Nakamoto, in addition to giving miners rewards, and no other powers, updating Bitcoin software is the power of developers.

There is a little white to ask, then the power of the developer is not too big?

Developers only have the power to update Bitcoin Core software, because Core is still receiving major support, so developers can still dominate Bitcoin's direction. If the Core team is not recognized by the community and users, people will switch to other versions of Bitcoin.

So is the user power the most? It doesn't seem to be, because, like Democrat Guo Jia, it sounds like the people have the most power, but in fact the people's power is really the biggest?

So decentralization is a game of power.

If the cryptocurrency pursues decentralization, then it is necessary to play a game of power, and everyone has the opportunity to compete for power. If you can't provide such a "battlefield," then it is still a centralized currency.

Obviously, only Bitcoin currently provides such a battlefield. Although other currencies are under the banner of PoS, PoW, DPoS, and PBFT, they are still PoF (Proof of Founder), the founder-centered currency.

Thanks to Nakamoto for creating the disappearance of Bitcoin, so that everyone can witness the decentralization miracle of a cryptocurrency.