19. Sync Protocol

When a node comes online, it must catch up to the current tip of the chain.

19.1 Block Sync

The standard sync protocol requests blocks sequentially from peers. Because Kortana has deterministic finality, nodes do not need to download entire alternate histories (uncles/forks). They simply follow the chain of Quorum Certificates.

19.2 Snapshot Sync

For rapid bootstrapping, nodes can perform a Snapshot Sync. Instead of processing every historical transaction, the node downloads a cryptographically verified snapshot of the world state (the Merkle-Patricia Trie) at a recent finalized block, and only executes blocks from that point forward.

19.3 Fast Sync

Fast sync operates similarly to snapshot sync but runs concurrently, downloading state trie nodes in parallel across multiple peers to maximize bandwidth utilization.

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