Core Protocoltower-bft
Tower BFT
Also known asTower
Solana's custom BFT consensus algorithm built on top of Proof of History. Tower BFT uses PoH as a clock to reduce communication overhead in traditional PBFT from O(n²) to O(n). Validators vote on forks with exponentially increasing lockout periods—each consecutive vote doubles the lockout, making rollbacks progressively more expensive. A fork is finalized when it reaches supermajority (66.7%+ of stake).
Related terms
3Core Protocol
Proof of History (PoH)
A clock mechanism that cryptographically proves the passage of time between events. PoH uses a sequential SHA-256 hash c...
Core Protocol
Vote Account
An on-chain account that records a validator's Tower BFT votes and tracks their voting history. Each validator has one v...
Core Protocol
Fork
A divergence in the blockchain where two or more blocks are produced for the same slot or different validators build on...