Yes, they removed distributed Proof-of-Work from the equation and used a distributed consensus algorithm instead. They're encouraging companies and institution

Yes, they removed distributed Proof-of-Work from the equation and used a distributed consensus algorithm instead. They're encouraging companies and institutions who are interested to run their own validator nodes. Running one doesn't make you any money, but it does help make the network more secure. Its an interesting alternative to PoW that doesn't require anywhere near as much electricity as PoW mining does.