South Korea's Largest Crypto Unveils New Consensus Algorithm

Published at: April 9, 2020

South Korea’s largest public blockchain project, ICON (ICX), announced its new Loop Fault Tolerance 2.0 (LFT 2.0) consensus algorithm on April 8.

The new algorithm claims to make performance improvements in scalability and network bandwidth over the popular Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus types, without compromising security.

Innovation reduces network load and improves throughput

The LFT 2.0 white paper was published on today been published on Github, following three years of research and development. It marks the first time that a South Korean team has successfully innovated on this element of blockchain technology.

PBFT-based algorithms, such as those used by cryptocurrencies like EOS and Cosmos, need a large number of message exchanges to reach consensus on a new block. LFT 2.0 reduces the message traffic required from three to two steps, enabling faster voting and a reduction in network latency.

Security of algorithm independently audited

The algorithm has also been independently audited for security by a team at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). As Cointelegraph reported, the same team raised concerns about the Stellar network last year. Speaking about LFT 2.0, the KAIST team said:

“We analyzed a consensus algorithm called LFT 2.0, which is used by a blockchain system, ICON. We proved that LFT 2.0 satisfies safety and liveness, where a certain assumption is required to prove liveness.”

Building for the future

ICON is the largest cryptocurrency project in South Korea, and aims to build a hybrid decentralized network that provides bridges between autonomous online communities and other blockchains.

ICX is currently the eighth most utilized blockchain globally. It is rated number 42 in terms of market cap, and is the second best performing token with over $100 million value during Q1 2020.

LFT 2.0 is scheduled for implementation later this year, and the ICON Foundation has high hopes for the future. ICON’s founder, Min Kim, explained:

“We’re proud of our accomplishments with LFT 2.0. This alone clearly shows why ICON is the top Korean project. But, we still have a lot of work ahead of us … LFT 2.0 is hard evidence that ICON and Korea now have the technical prowess to innovate head-to-head with global blockchain projects like Ethereum.”