Supply Chain Tracking Network VeChain has just updated its consensus mechanism to what it claims is the “greenest” way to verify blocks in the chain.
On November 16, VeChain reached a significant milestone in its six-year history by updating the VeChainThor network to the first stage of the Proof of Authority (PoA) 2.0 SURFACE consensus algorithm.
VeChain is a supply chain tracking system launched in 2015 that combines physical tracking and blockchain logging.
PoA and Proof of Stake (PoS) differ from Proof of Work (PoW) in that they do not require mining to reach network consensus. PoA achieves consensus by verifying the identity of users, while PoS does this by placing coins on the network.
There are only 101 nodes in the VeChain network. Fewer nodes reduces decentralization, but increases network speed and reliability. This is generally preferred for commercial and industrial applications. By comparison, Bitcoin currently has 13,244 nodes, while Ethereum has 2701.
An additional benefit is that PoA is less energy intensive and emits very little carbon. VeChain suggested that the new update is “the world’s greenest consensus for mass adoption.”
According to the official announcement, the update consists of three main components. The first is a Verifiable Random Function (VRF) that securely and randomly assigns nodes to create blocks or process transactions, making them immune to corruption.
The second is the commission-approved block generation process, which greatly reduces the possibility of network branching. Branching can cause delays and reduce network bandwidth.
The third component is the final negative mass verification process. This helps ensure that new blocks are complete even if all nodes on the network are out of sync.
The PoA 2.0 SURFACE update also aims to improve the scalability, security, and bandwidth of the VeChainThor network.
In their announcement, the VeChain team explained that a relatively adaptive branchless, branchless approach to chain extension (SURFACE) is needed to securely leverage PoA 2.0 “to meet the needs of future blockchain applications and increase global demand.”
Related: VeChain Thor Mainnet reaches 10 million blocks without stopping
Several exchanges, including Binance and Crypto.com, supported the VeChain (VET) hard fork, which is down about 10% in the last 24 hours.
On November 16, the VeChain Project also announced the election of a second Steering Committee (SC). The SC is designed to “improve the efficiency of decision-making and ensure fairness and efficiency in implementation on all core issues”.
