From the blog post you linked three comments up or so: > Big “C” means all nodes see the same data at the same time. Being big-C consistent is a prerequisite t

From the blog post you linked three comments up or so: > Big “C” means all nodes see the same data at the same time. Being big-C consistent is a prerequisite to preventing double-spends, and therefore storing tokens of value. There are many models of consistency; we mean “consistent” in the same way that the CAP theorem does, except a little bit more loosely (for pragmatism). Little “c” means strong eventual consistency, such that when data gets merged there are no conflicts, but not consistent enough to prevent double spends. > there are various ways to handle key distribution, of course Right. Having the public keys advances the discussion precisely nothing, because public key auth is pretty much a given if we're talking about the servers identifying themselves. What tells us if we have a decentralised system with no central authority is: who's the gatekeeper? Who controls key distribution, and which keys are accepted into the pool?