Stanford professor David Mazières published in a white paper on April 8th a system that proposes a new approach to consensus.
Federated Byzantine agreement (FBA) in general relies on quorum slices and individual trust decisions that together determine system-level quorums. Slices bind the system together much the way individual networks’ peering and transit decisions now unify the Internet.
The publication also presents the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a construction for FBA. SCP makes no rational behavior assumptions, yet unlike prior Byzantine agreement models, SCP enjoys open membership. Compared to decentralized proof of-work and proof-of-stake schemes, SCP has modest computing and financial requirements, lowering the barrier to entry and potentially opening up financial systems to new participants.
SCP’s four key properties are: Decentralized control; Low latency; Flexible trust; Asymptotic security.
Practical application and public acceptance of SCP as a currency platform is not clear, but it does show some progress over some reported issues with Bitcoin.
There is also a handy summary available if you wait and see how market embraces SCP before going through whole paper.