Consensus

1. POSA (Proof of Staked Authority)

ACENT uses the Proof of Stake Authority (POSA) Consensus, which has evolved from the old POR (Proof-of-Reliability) algorithm. The ACE POSA is a hybrid form of consensus that enhances the Clique Proof of Authority Consensus with built-in DeFi-like staking rewards for all participants. 

Clique POA consensus protocol has a unique feature wherein only designated signer nodes can seal/mine the blocks. This means there is no energy and time-consuming hash mining involved, in contrast to Ethash (Ethereum’s PoW algorithm). Only nodes that are in the list of signers can seal the blocks. In the absence of hash mining, Clique creates a block in a predefined period of time. This significantly speeds up base transaction processing time by 5X as compared to Ethereum.

We modified the Clique POA consensus so that instead of the signers getting the transaction fees, these fees will go to a reward pool called the Acent Substance Accumulation Pool (ASAP). A built-in staking smart contract called Acent Rewards Smart Contract (ARC) will enable users of the Acent blockchain to participate by staking ACENT into ARSC and obtaining proportionate ACE rewards from ASAP. Eventually, these rewards are added to the UBI system, benefiting the EDAO governance token holders, who are eligible to claim their share of earnings from the entire ecosystem depending on how much EDAO they possess.

Consequently, this hybrid consensus enables the ACENT network to speed up transactions while keeping fees low and minimizing the network’s labor intensity. Furthermore, it also enables users to participate in decentralized fee farming.

2. Signers/Validators

Initially the signers/validators that would validate and seal/mine the blocks will be defined in the genesis.json. The signers are updated dynamically via the Clique POA protocol of the Acent blockchain.

3. Fee burning process Acent per transaction

 The Acent token is burned in the following ways:

1. Acent is burned using Acent Nitro (Gas) for every on-chain transaction, which generates Nitro gas fee. 

2. Nitro gas is taken from all Acent Mainnet validator nodes using a helper script running on each secure validator node. All Nitro gas from each validator node is sent to POSA’s smart contract address.
3. The POSA smart contract is activated, and the amount of Nitros to be burned is calculated using the formula Y = X * 9%. Where:
   • “X” is the input or the number of ACE that will be burned at a 9% burn rate; and 
   • “Y” is the burned amount that is sent to the UBI wallet address of the Acent Foundation.
4. Then the 91% left from X is divided by the total number of POSA hot wallets of Acent. In this case, there are 3 POSA wallets, so Z = X / 3 or in another expression, Z = the 1/3 of X.
5. Z is then sent to each POSA hot wallet.
6. POSA Smart Contract finishes processing. The POSA Smart contract waits for the next transaction to be processed again from Step 1.