Message Rounds

Definition ∞ Message rounds refer to distinct phases of communication or information exchange among participants in a distributed computing system or a blockchain consensus protocol. Each round involves nodes sending, receiving, and processing messages to collectively agree on a state or validate transactions. The number of rounds can impact the speed and complexity of reaching consensus. They are fundamental to distributed agreement.
Context ∞ In blockchain technology, message rounds are a technical detail often discussed in news concerning the efficiency and finality of various consensus algorithms. Debates center on optimizing these rounds to reduce latency and improve network throughput, particularly in Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) protocols. A critical future development involves designing consensus mechanisms that achieve faster finality with fewer message rounds.