A consensus is a general agreement. In decentralized systems, it brings nodes back in sync (every nodes agrees on the same state).
A consensus mechanism is a stack of protocols, incentives & ideas that allows nodes to reach consensus.
In general, consensus mechanisms encourage individuals to operate honestly by rewarding them. It can also punish malicious nodes (such as in PoS).
It involves miners who solve complicated mathematical puzzles to produce a new block. The more a node has computing power, the more chance it has to solve the puzzle and produce a new block. The first node to solve the puzzle gets rewarded with an amount of a cryptocurrency.
It is used by Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Monero, Ethereum, ...
It uses a randomized process to figure out who gets a chance to produce the next block. Stake (amount of cryptocurrency locked) is needed to participate in the consensus process. If a node acts honestly, it will get rewarded in cryptocurrency. If not, it will lose a part of its stake.
Used by Ethereum, BNB, Cardano, Polkadot, Avalanche, Cosmos, Algorand, NEAR, Elrond, ...
Users can stake their cryptocurrency & vote for a node to produce the next block.
Used by Solana, Tron, EOS, Tezos, ...
Stores solution of complex mathematical puzzles in digital storage devices such as hard disks that are used to create new blocks.
Used by Storj, Burst, Chia & SpaceMint.
Randomly & fairly decides the producer of a new block based on their waiting time.
Used by Hyperledger Sawtooth.
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