What is Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)?

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Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) is a critical property of a distributed system that allows it to reach a reliable consensus and continue operating correctly even if a significant number of its components, specifically up to one-third of the total nodes, fail or act maliciously (known as "Byzantine faults"). This mechanism is fundamental to the security and immutability of many modern blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, ensuring that all honest nodes agree on the same state despite the presence of bad actors.

Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)

What is Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)?

What is the Byzantine Generals' Problem and how does it relate to Byzantine Fault Tolerance in blockchain?

How does Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (pBFT) differ from the BFT achieved by Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains like Bitcoin?

What are the most common BFT-based consensus mechanisms used in modern crypto infrastructure and what are their trade-offs?

What are the security implications if a BFT system's fault tolerance threshold is exceeded, and how do modern blockchains mitigate this risk?

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