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<strong>A </strong><a href="https://hackernoon.com/tagged/blockchain" target="_blank"><strong>blockchain</strong></a><strong> consensus mechanism is the protocol used to agree on the “truth” when the blockchain is receiving data from many independent nodes that may be faulty or otherwise untruthful.</strong> There exist many different types of consensus mechanisms used in distributed systems, but we will focus on some well-known ones used for blockchains. In the context of adding to a blockchain’s distributed ledger, a simple way to think of the different kinds of mechanisms is by separating them by what participants may sacrifice in order to contribute.