Consensus Faults
Consensus faults are technical or logical failures that occur within a distributed network when nodes fail to agree on the state of the ledger. These faults can arise from software bugs, network partitions, or intentional attacks.
In a robust protocol, consensus faults are mitigated through redundancy, Byzantine fault tolerance, and clear penalty structures. When a fault is detected, the protocol must determine the correct state while isolating the nodes responsible for the error.
These faults represent the primary challenge in distributed systems design, as they can lead to double-spending or network halts if not managed correctly. Understanding and modeling these faults is essential for building reliable financial infrastructure on top of blockchains.