How is consensus reached in a Decentralized Oracle Network?

Question

I understand the deterministic nature of blockchains thus the need for oracles to feed outputs of non deterministic algorithms or API-calls to smart contracts. Using a single node oracle would defeat the purpose of using a blockchain, A DON (decentralized Oracle Network) is used instead.

I understand that a consensus mechanism is used to agree on a given blockchain state at a given timestamp. In an Oracle Problem scenario though a DON output would serve as an input in determining the updated blockchain state. How is consensus reached in a DON in the first place?

Answer 1

Answered by Joose#0001 on Chainlink official discord

Chainlink consensus is an interesting topic.

TLDR: Chainlink nodes coordinate and talk to each other using a Byzantine Fault Tolerant "sleepy" consensus mechanism.

If you want details, read the 3 articles I link below (from the CL website), in order.

If you want more details, read the 2 Chainlink white papers!

1) "Minority Corruption Resilience in Byzantine Generals With Unknown and Fluctuating Participation"

2) "The Latest View on View Synchronization"

3) "Optimal Latency and Communication SMR View-Synchronization"