> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://polarischain-1.gitbook.io/polarischain/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://polarischain-1.gitbook.io/polarischain/12.-security-analysis-and-network-resilience/12.1-consensus-security-guarantees.md).

# 12.1 Consensus Security Guarantees

The Mysticeti consensus engine inherits and optimizes standard Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) properties:

* **Safety:** No two honest validators commit conflicting transactions, provided fewer than one-third of validators are Byzantine (`f < n/3`).
* **Liveness:** The network continues to progress under partial synchrony as long as `f < n/3` validators remain online and honest.
* **Deterministic Finality:** Committed transactions are cryptographically irreversible. There are no probabilistic confirmations, orphaned blocks, or chain reorganizations.
* **Equivocation Accountability:** Validators publishing conflicting blocks for the same round are detected via signature verification, permanently banned by authority index, and barred from reconnecting. Bans persist across restarts and load before P2P listener initialization.


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