Clear DefinitionsQuorum
1 min read
Pronunciation
[kwor-əm]
Analogy
Quorum is like a private club built on the same structure as a public park—you get the same Ethereum features but with gated access and private pathways for members.
Definition
An enterprise‑focused, permissioned variant of Ethereum developed by ConsenSys, offering transaction and privacy controls for consortium networks.
Key Points Intro
Quorum extends Ethereum with features suited for enterprise consortia:
Key Points
Permissioned membership: Access control lists define who can join and transact.
Privacy managers: Private transaction handling via Constellation or Tessera.
Custom consensus: Supports Raft and IBFT for low‑latency finality.
Ethereum compatibility: Full support for EVM, Solidity, and tooling.
Example
A group of banks uses Quorum with Raft consensus and Tessera to exchange confidential settlement instructions off‑chain while anchoring proofs on‑chain.
Technical Deep Dive
Quorum forks the Go‑Ethereum client, replacing the transaction pool to handle private payloads. Private transactions are encrypted and sent through Constellation/Tessera nodes; only hashes are recorded on‑chain. Quorum’s consensus layer swaps out PoW for Raft or IBFT via pluggable modules. The EVM execution remains unmodified.
Security Warning
Private transaction payload managers must be correctly firewalled; an exposed Tessera API can reveal encrypted payloads.
Caveat
Quorum’s privacy model relies on off‑chain managers—losing those nodes can render private data inaccessible.
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