South Korea’s ICON Reveals new Consensus Algorithm

ICON, the largest public blockchain network of South Korea, has recently announced its new consensus algorithm. On the 8th of April 2020, ICON revealed the Loop Fault Tolerance 2.0, or LFT 2.0, consensus algorithm.

A New Innovation For Korea’s Blockchain Space

It’s claimed that this new algorithm is capable of improving the network bandwidth and overall scalability of the ever-popular Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus types, or PBFT. According to ICON, this algorithm can achieve this without compromising the security through doing so.

The white paper for LFT 2.0 was published today, having been done so on GitHub. This comes after three years were spent researching and developing this algorithm. This stands as the first successful innovation of this particular element in blockchain technology for South Korea.

The Many Steps Taken To Improve

The trick behind PBFT-based algorithms, which are used by big names like Cosmos or EOS, is that in order to reach consensus on a new block, they first need a large number of message exchanges. LFT 2.0 streamlines this by turning a typically 3-step process into just two steps, significantly easing message traffic. With this, network latency can be reduced, and a faster voting process can be enabled.

A further measure to ensure security and functionality is that the algorithm itself was audited by an independent team at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology or KAIST.

It was this very team that had raised concerns in regards to the Stellar network a year ago. In a statement regarding LFT 2.0, the team was very to the point. In short order, the group explained that LFT 2.0 satisfied the team’s requirements in liveness and safety, noting that there was a certain assumption needed to prove its liveness.

A Heavyweight In Korean Crypto Space

ICON stands as the most significant crypto project currently based in South Korea. The project plans to build a hybrid decentralized network, one that can act as a bridge between other blockchains and autonomous online communities.

As it stands now, ICON stands in eighth place when it comes to the world’s most utilized blockchains. It’s rated the second-best performing token, standing at $100 million in value within Q1 2020, and holds the 42nd place in terms of Market Cap.

As it stands now, plans to implement LFT 2.0 is scheduled to occur later this year, with ICON itself holding its hopes high for the future. Min Kim, the founder of ICON, gave the mandatory speech about the company’s pride in its accomplishments. He cited the proven technical prowess of ICON and Korea as a whole, citing LFT 2.0 as evidence thereof.