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Does a number of validating devices/miners have an impact on processing business logic?

If I understand correctly, as the number of validating devices increases, the time it takes to reach the consensus also increases in case of stateful logic. In case of processing the stateless logic, it should be even more.

Arpit Bajpai
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No, the results should be the same regardless of the amount of nodes in the network. The only things that change are:

1) Security and credibility. More nodes brings more security and therefore more credibility

2) Depending on network settings, possibly more uncle nodes and therefore possibly a bit more centralization. This also depends on the network - if there are only a few nodes which always get their blocks into the canonical chain someone might consider the network somewhat centralized. But uncle nodes still contribute to the network even if they are not part of the canonical chain.

The time to reach consensus depends on network propagation time and similar issues. The network always reaches consensus eventually but the only question is how many nodes end up working on uncle nodes and how many get into the canonical chain.

Lauri Peltonen
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  • Thank you Lauri for the answer. How does this statement make sense: "We observe that the consensus cycle is longer in blockchains with more full peers as block and transaction propagation takes longer." I read it in one of the papers. – Arpit Bajpai Jan 14 '19 at 12:47
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    Yes, it can get longer. But that does not influence the speed or accuracy of smart contract execution. When someone finds the block solution transactions in the block are considered done - until the chain gets possibly reorganized. It's just all about how many confirmations you want to wait for until you consider some transaction as secure enough (sure enough that it won't get removed from the canonical chain anymore) – Lauri Peltonen Jan 14 '19 at 13:00
  • That cleared my doubt. Just out of curiosity, Is it possible to change this parameter " how many confirmations you want to wait for until you consider some transaction as secure enough"? AFAIK, all the full nodes take part in this process. – Arpit Bajpai Jan 15 '19 at 09:36
  • A "confirmation" is not a real Ethereum term as such - it only refers to the amount of blocks on top of the block you are interested in so that the transaction is probably not rolled back anymore. Here's some more info: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/319/what-number-of-confirmations-is-considered-secure-in-ethereum – Lauri Peltonen Jan 15 '19 at 10:06
  • Okay, So if I put it differently, how many verifiers (peers) are required to verify a block and is it dependent on the Blockchain that a certain number of verifiers are required for block verification? – Arpit Bajpai Jan 15 '19 at 10:25
  • In theory the blockchain doesn't require any verifiers. The blockchain could run with just one miner node and that's it. Everything else is just a matter of security. If you have further questions, please post a new question - comments section is not a good place for extended discussions. – Lauri Peltonen Jan 15 '19 at 10:32