A new distributed accounting technology known as a hash graph has been creating rumors in blockchain circles.
But what is it? In short, it is a technology that can offer many of the same solutions as blockchain, but that uses different mechanisms to transmit information and confirm transactions within the network.
What is Hashgraph?
Hashgraph is essentially a graph , a mathematical object that is held together by simple and regular hashes , without high-level cryptographic implementations, such as zero-knowledge tests , for example.
A hash network achieves consensus (which means that the nodes reach an agreement about the state of the network, including the records of who owns what assets) using what Leemon Baird, who originally conceived the hashgraph, calls "gossip about gossip " Let's see then how this concept works in the network.
The hash nodes are constantly "gossiping" or sharing with each other every information they know about the current state of the network and its history. Instead of having the entire network agree, in unison, on what a certain transaction occurred, as occurs in blockchain environments, a node involved in a hashgraph transaction randomly selects another node to report on it (and everything else that know), then another, and another, indefinitely.
All the nodes that receive this information also share it with randomly selected nodes over and over again, adding to their reports any new information they have received since the last time they transmitted the sum of their knowledge. This constant exchange prevents malicious actors from withholding information about transactions, an act that can be the basis of an attack on a DLT network.
"Gossip gossip" inserts hash values in the node-to-node reports that indicate the time when the reporting node became aware of a data. This allows the network to determine the order in which the nodes received each information, which significantly improves the security of the network by making it almost impossible to forge a transaction.
Instead of each node having to vote on what it believes to be the true state of the network, the network can simply examine these hashes to determine which node knew what information, and at what time.
The network infers consensus then through a "vote without votes", that is, a virtual vote, assuming that the vote of a node does not contradict the available information about the state of the network.
According to Baird, this allows the network to reach consensus free of charge. "You will not have to talk to anyone and you will have a perfect consensus with the mathematical guarantees that you are right". In other words, the consensus mechanism of a hash graph is extremely practical in relation to the Proof-of-Workand Proof-of-Stake schemes that are implemented and discussed in blockchain circles.