Part 3/17:
Their discussion takes a step back, exploring the roots of distributed systems based on the 1970s concept known as the Byzantine Generals Problem. This problem encapsulates the challenge of achieving consensus in a hostile environment with untrustworthy actors, which is fundamental to blockchain technology.
They discuss foundational algorithms like PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance) and related protocols such as Raft and Paxos, which work well in small, permissioned settings but falter in large, permissionless networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.