I think the most interesting thing the article states is the following question (and proposed answer): Is it possible to get compare-and-swap without the log?

I think the most interesting thing the article states is the following question (and proposed answer): Is it possible to get compare-and-swap without the log? TL;DR: I don’t think so. Riak Ensemble is such a system that utilizes single-decree Paxos in order to try to achieve CAS: https://github.com/basho/riak_ensemble https://github.com/basho/riak_ensemble If the only the distinguished leader is allowed to publish a proposal for value change, then this allows you to preserve the CAS invariant. Unfortunately, this comes at the sacrifice of liveness. If you then have a second Paxos group to elect the leader, then this removes the liveness issue. On view change, you have to contact a quorum of nodes, and re-propose a new epoch in order to avoid issues. I'm curious if someone can poke a hole in riak_ensemble's algorithm.