Consensus
Consensus is the ruleset by which independent nodes agree on the one true history of the ledger. It's what decides who gets to add the next block and what
Consensus is the ruleset by which independent nodes agree on the one true history of the ledger. It’s what decides who gets to add the next block and what happens when two nodes see conflicting chains. Proof-of-work and proof-of-stake are two different consensus mechanisms.
Why it matters
Without consensus, thousands of computers with no leader couldn’t agree on anything — you’d get parallel realities. Consensus replaces the trusted third party with a protocol any node can verify. The decentralization of that process is precisely what W3D’s infrastructure scores measure.