How GenLayer Works
Optimistic Democracy
GenLayer uses Optimistic Democracy for consensus — a mechanism where validators running diverse AI models independently evaluate transactions and vote on outcomes. It applies Condorcet's Jury Theorem (opens in a new tab): a group of independent reasoners is more likely to reach the correct answer than any individual.
Transactions are accepted if a majority of validators agree. Anyone can appeal an accepted result, triggering re-evaluation by a new, larger validator set. This process can escalate through multiple rounds until a final decision is reached.
Transaction Lifecycle
Every transaction moves through these stages:
- Pending — queued, waiting to be picked up
- Proposing — a leader validator executes the contract and proposes a result
- Committing — other validators execute independently and submit encrypted votes
- Leader Revealing — the leader reveals execution data and decryption keys
- Revealing — validators reveal their votes
- Accepted — majority consensus reached; transaction enters the appeal window
- Finalized — appeal window closed, result is permanent and irreversible
If consensus is not reached, the transaction may be marked Undetermined or rotate to a new leader.
See Transaction Execution for the full state machine.
Non-Determinism and Consensus
Because Intelligent Contracts use LLMs and web data, validators may produce different outputs for the same input. GenLayer provides several strategies for reaching consensus on non-deterministic results:
- Strict equality — all validators must produce the exact same output (for deterministic operations)
- LLM-based comparison — an LLM compares validator outputs against developer-defined criteria
- Custom validation — developers write explicit leader/validator function pairs with full control over consensus logic
See Non-determinism for implementation details.
Appeals and Finality
After a transaction is accepted, it enters a finality window during which anyone can appeal the result.
- An appeal triggers a new round with a fresh, larger validator set
- Appeals can escalate through multiple rounds
- The final round's decision is binding
Once the finality window closes without appeal (or after the final appeal round), the transaction is finalized — permanent and irreversible.
See Appeal Process and Finality for details.