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Hi, noob question about Cardano slotting: since one block is 20 seconds then how come the safe time threshold is cited as 36h -- isn't 2160 blocks * 20 seconds = 43200 seconds = 12 hours? |
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It's a little bit more complicated. One block isn't created every 20s. On average, there's a block every 20s if the chain only contains honest actors. So in principle you cannot really make assumptions about the time it takes to see N blocks. Could be N*20s, could be slightly less or it could be more. Yet, in Ouroboros Praos, the protocol gives you another guarantee: at least k honest blocks are produced in a window of 3k/f slots; where k is the security parameter (k=2160 on mainnet) and f the active slot coefficient (f=0.05 on mainnet). Thus on Mainnet, This tells you that in a window of 129600 slots, the protocol guarantees that you see at least k blocks. With a slot length of 1s, that's 36h. |
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Thank you, that makes it clear! :) |
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It's a little bit more complicated. One block isn't created every 20s. On average, there's a block every 20s if the chain only contains honest actors. So in principle you cannot really make assumptions about the time it takes to see N blocks. Could be N*20s, could be slightly less or it could be more.
Yet, in Ouroboros Praos, the protocol gives you another guarantee: at least k honest blocks are produced in a window of 3k/f slots; where k is the security parameter (k=2160 on mainnet) and f the active slot coefficient (f=0.05 on mainnet).
Thus on Mainnet, This tells you that in a window of 129600 slots, the protocol guarantees that you see at least k blocks. With a slot length of 1s, that'…