The pre-consensus proof-of-concept Avalanche was for the past few weeks a project within the Bitcoin Cash developer community but now, the protocol has been applied to the full node implementation with the PoC now on the network’s mainnet.

Avalanche will add the Byzantine-fault-tolerant proofs to the blockchain network, thereby allowing the nodes to differentiate between two transactions that are in conflict with each other. The advantage with Avalanche, developers claim, is that the protocol will communicate with the nodes in real time as the transaction takes place. The protocol will allow the node network to be questioned, to conclude which transaction between the ones at conflict is preferred.

Bitcoin Cash has confirmed that the Avalanche protocol is only a pre-consensus tool and one that will run parallel to the network’s proof-of-work protocol, making the system more prone to fight-off faulty transactions.

Chris Pacia, a Bitcoin Cash Developer confirmed that the protocol was currently running on the network’s mainnet:

“Ok avalanche proof of concept officially running on mainnet.”

The developer further added a link to the Avalanche Github repository showing the pre-consensus specifications. Prior to listing the specifications, the repository had the following message:

“The following is the specification for avalanche pre-consensus as implemented in this branch. It is not intended to be a final spec and is likely not compatible with the implementation being developed by Bitcoin ABC. The primary purpose is to give other developers something tangible to look at, think about, and discuss.”

Bitcoin Cash developers have also published an Avalanche Transaction Explorer, in which they highlight that transactions finality is around 2-3 seconds or less. Therefore, transactions on the Avalanche explorer cannot be reversed or double-spent. The explorer stated:

“Avalanche is a new consensus algorithm that was introduced in 2018. There is an active proposal to use it in Bitcoin Cash to enable nodes and miners to come to a pre-consensus on the set of valid transactions before they are included in a block. If used this way, it would give Bitcoin Cash the equivalent of nearly instantaneous confirmations while improving mempool synchronization and reducing the financial incentive to 51% attack.”

Gabriel Cardano, another developer at Bitcoin Cash and the man behind the Badger button and Bitbox confirmed, after checking the pre-consensus speed of BCH against ETH:

“Transaction finalized in 1.559723305s. That’s 10x faster than ETH. Serious game changer.”

In a recent episode uploaded on the Bitcoin.com YouTube channel, Cardano confirmed that the team responsible for the Avalanche project was called Team Rocket. Joining Cardano on explaining the Avalanche project, the CEO of Bitcoin.com Roger Ver, who reiterated that the new pre-consensus protocol does not replace the proof-of-work. He stated:

“It doesn’t replace Roof-of-Work (PoW) at all, there’s a bunch of people spreading FUD on the internet. This does not change the proof-of-work mechanism or the blocks or anything about that. It just lets you know in advance what transactions are going to be in the block.”

Ver further confirmed that after the Avalanche protocol, user experience and scalability, along with the speed is going to be 10 times faster when compared to Ethereum.