Symbol

Key Technical Advantages:

Blockchain-based DLT Protocol: Symbol uses a blockchain protocol that is designed to be trustless. This means that any node can download a complete copy of the chain and independently verify it at all times. Nodes with sufficient harvesting power can always create blocks and never need to rely on a leader. This approach sacrifices some throughput but aligns with the philosophical principles of Bitcoin. Probabilistic and Deterministic Block Finalization: Symbol supports both probabilistic and deterministic block finalization. Probabilistic finalization means that the probability of any particular block being rolled back decreases as more blocks are added to it. Deterministic finalization includes a mechanism in the protocol that allows checkpoints to be set that can never be rolled back. Enhanced Transparency and Trustlessness: Compared to NEM, Symbol has added features for greater transparency and trustlessness. These include syncing block headers without transaction data (while allowing chain integrity verification), transaction Merkle trees (for cryptographic proofs of transaction containment), receipts (for increased transparency of indirectly triggered state changes), and state proofs (for trustless verification of specific state within the blockchain). Server Customization with Plugins and Extensions: There is a single server executable in Symbol that can be customized by loading different plugins (for transaction support) and extensions (for functionality). There are three primary configurations: Peer, API, and Dual, but further customized hybrid configurations are possible. Network Fingerprint: Each network in Symbol has a unique fingerprint composed of a Network Identifier and a Generation Hash Seed. The Network Identifier is a one-byte identifier that can be shared across networks, and the Generation Hash Seed is a random 32-byte value that is globally unique across networks. This seed is prepended to transaction data prior to hashing or signing to prevent cross-network replay attacks. Content summarized by AI chatbot

Source:

https://symbol.github.io/symbol-technicalref/main.pdf