Proposed Consensus Algorithm Tenderbake Is Launched On Tezos Testnet

Tenderbake

Tenderbake, a proposed consensus algorithm change that is expected to feature in an upcoming Tezos amendment upgrade  in the future has been launched on Tezos testnet.

As this will be a very large change to the Tezos blockchain, effectively changing and optimizing the existing Emmy+ consensus algorithm, it is likely that the testnet will be running for a fairly long time to make sure it is robust.

Tenderbake has been created with the involvement of many highly skilled research teams, including: French Government entity CEA List, who are part of the CEA, otherwise known as the French Alternative Energies And Atomic Energy Commission.

Other teams include Nomadic Labs and members of Université Paris-Saclay amongst others. The French Alternative Energies And Atomic Energy Commission have an annual budget of €5 billion and have over 20,000 employees.

It will change the Tezos consensus algorithm from a Nakamoto style algorithm (Emmy +), to  a BFT-style algorithm (Tenderbake).

Some Tezos developers are already running the Tenderbake testnet as seen here:

Tenderbake Benefits

Tenderbake will enable Tezos to have near-instant finality when it comes to confirming transactions. This will be similar to how Tendermint performs on Cosmos, which is what Tenderbake is based on.

Users can be sure their transactions are finalized as soon as a block is created (which is not the case in Proof-of-Work blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum).

Nomadic Labs gave estimates on the improvements in terms of finality and speed here:

Tenderbake is also fast, in the sense that it has a small (quick) time to finality: under typical good network conditions, and making a standard assumption of an attacker (“byzantine”) stake of at most 33% — meaning that at most 1/3 of the network is trying to undermine correct behaviour:

in Tenderbake, one would expect to wait less than 1 minute for a block to be considered final, whereas
in Emmy+, one would expect to wait at least 6 minutes.

Another benefit of Tenderbake will be increased TPS (Transactions Per Second). It’s hard to know exactly how much Tenderbake will increase the TPS on Tezos, however there have been some ‘guestimates’ published online:

Both these benefits will enable Tezos to become more scalable in the future, making transactions multitudes faster.