Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG) Based Consensus Protocols: An Introduction | a16z crypto research talks

A tutorial on direct acyclic graph (DAG) based consensus protocols. Andrew Lewis-Pye (London School of Economics) introduces DAGs, which allow blocks to have multiple parents or children, thus resolving the problem of “forks” in blockchains. The resulting structure is a Directed Acyclic Graph (rather than a chain). Andy introduces how to think about such structures and then focuses on state-of-the-art protocols such as Cordial Miners, DAG-Rider, and Bullshark.

About the speaker
Andy is a Professor at the London School of Economics. He has worked in various fields, including mathematical logic, network science, population genetics, and blockchain. For the last four years his research focus has been on blockchain, where his principal interests are in consensus protocols and tokenomics. More: https://lewis-pye.com/

About a16z crypto research
a16z crypto research is a multidisciplinary lab that works closely with our portfolio companies and others toward solving the important problems in the space, and toward advancing the science and technology of the next generation of the internet.

Our researchers are technologists, scientists, cryptographers, and cryptocurrency experts, working to bridge the worlds of academic theory with industry practice, and to help shape crypto and web3 as a formal area of study. More about us: a16z.com/2022/04/21/announcing-a16z-crypto-research

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