Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)
Plain English
The ability of a network to continue working correctly even when some participants are acting maliciously or have failed. Named after the "Byzantine Generals Problem" - how can generals coordinate an attack when some might be traitors? Critical for blockchain security.
Technical
Property of distributed systems that enables correct operation despite arbitrary failures or malicious behavior from up to 1/3 of network participants. Solana’s Tower BFT consensus achieves Byzantine fault tolerance while leveraging Proof of History for timing, enabling high throughput and fast finality in adversarial environments.