Liveness (Consensus)
A consensus property guaranteeing the network continues making progress and eventually processes valid transactions, even under adverse conditions.
Liveness is a consensus property guaranteeing that a network continues making progress — producing new blocks and eventually processing valid, submitted transactions — even under adverse conditions, such as some participants being offline or acting maliciously.
Liveness is one of two core properties consensus researchers generally evaluate a system against, alongside safety (see Kaavon's "Safety (Consensus)" glossary definition) — a system can in principle prioritize one over the other under extreme conditions, and different consensus mechanism designs make genuinely different trade-offs between the two.
Examples
- A network maintaining liveness continues producing new blocks and processing transactions, even if some validators go offline or act maliciously.
- Liveness and safety are the two core properties consensus researchers generally evaluate a system against, with different designs making different trade-offs between them.