How it works
From a signature to sealed history.
One record's journey through the mesh — five stages, from a local signature to a signed epoch seal (every 60 seconds by default), post-quantum signatures at every step.
Record — on any device, online or not
The work is hashed (SHA3-256), signed with post-quantum keys (ML-DSA-65 — FIPS 204, "Dilithium3"; an optional second SPHINCS+ signature is not yet bound to the signer — see known limitations), and stamped with an interval tree clock — causal time that needs no synchronized clocks and no connection.
Gossip — the mesh moves it
Records travel a peer-to-peer mesh over ElaraPQ, a post-quantum transport (hybrid X25519 + ML-KEM-768 key exchange, ML-DSA-65 authentication; peer keys are trusted on first use). Content-routed DHT delivery is designed to keep it efficient as the network grows — so far tested only on small networks, where flood-gossip covers delivery.
Witness — staked peers attest
Staked witnesses sign attestations, and a record settles once attesting stake passes two-thirds. MESH-BFT's design also weighs independence: witnesses that share an organization, subnet or location count less, so one operator's clones should not settle a record alone. That weighting is computed and reported today, but it does not yet gate finality, and it cannot help against identities spread across distinct organizations and networks — known limitations.
Seal — history becomes immutable
Epochs close over records with Merkle roots, chained seal-to-seal and periodically consolidated into super-seals and checkpoints. Rewriting one record means rewriting every seal after it — so an edit cannot hide from anyone who kept an earlier seal.
Verify — offline, against math
A light client downloads headers, not history: checkpoint skip-sync means no genesis replay. Any record's existence and position is verified with a Merkle proof (at most 64 hashes) against a sealed root — light enough for a browser tab (phones are not yet measured). The check is only as good as the root, so pin a seal you trust or check its anchors.
+ How MESH-BFT is designed to resist clone armies
Classical BFT counts weight. MESH-BFT's design counts independent weight: witnesses that share an organization, a subnet, or a geography are correlation-penalized before their stake is summed, so the committee on the left, with 100% of the raw stake, would not settle, while the diverse committee settles with the same total.
Status: the shipped code computes this weighting and reports it, but finality today counts raw stake — so, today, the clone committee on the left would settle; stake is what holds clones off, as in any proof-of-stake system (known limitations).
The aim: Sybil resistance by arithmetic, not CAPTCHAs.
The math is in the papers.
Committee selection, seal chains, light-client proofs and the diversity-weighting design — written down and open to review. The proofs are sketches, not machine-checked; where papers and code differ, known limitations says how.
Protocol whitepaper MESH-BFT paper