Supply chain tracking network VeChain just upgraded its consensus mechanism. According to them, this is the greenest method in the world to verify blockages in the chain.
VeChain comes with an upgrade
On Tuesday, VeChain reached a milestone in its six-year history by upgrading its VeChainThor mainnet to the first phase 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 with blockchain registration. PoA and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) differ from Proof-of-Work in that they do not require mining to reach network consensus. PoA achieves consensus by verifying users’ identities. While PoS does this by staking coins in the network.
The VeChain network works with only 101 nodes. Fewer nodes reduce decentralization, but increase network speed and reliability. For comparison, Bitcoin currently has 13,244 nodes and Ethereum 2,701.
An additional advantage is that PoA consumes less energy and that partly because of this it emits a very low amount of carbon. According to VeChain, the new upgrade would be the world’s “greenest consensus” to drive mass adoption.
The three main components of the upgrade
The upgrade consists of three main components, according to the official announcement. First up is the verifiable randomness feature that securely and randomly allocates nodes to produce blocks or process transactions. This makes them immune to corruption.
The second is a committee-approved process for producing blocks. This significantly reduces the chance of network forking. Forking can cause delays and slow down network throughput.
The third part is a passive confirmation process for the finality of the block. This causes new blocks to be completed. Even if all nodes on the network are not synchronized.
The PoA 2.0 SURFACE upgrade also aims to significantly improve scalability, security and throughput on the VeChainThor main network.
VeChain’s team also explained in the announcement that the PoA 2.0 Secure Use-case Adaptive Relively Fork-free Approach of Chain Extension (SURFACE) is needed to meet the demands of future blockchain applications and increasing global demand. Several exchanges, including Binance and Crypto.com, supported VeChain’s hard fork. The native crypto currency VET has fallen by about 10% in the past 24 hours.
The VeChain project also announced the election of the second steering committee (SC) on Tuesday. This SC is designed to facilitate the efficiency of decision making. In addition, the SC ensures fairness and effectiveness of execution for all fundamental matters.