Nervos

The Nervos Network describes itself as an open-source public blockchain ecosystem and collection of protocols. The Nervos CKB (Common Knowledge Base) is the layer 1, proof of work public blockchain protocol of the Nervos Network. It reportedly allows any crypto-asset to be stored with the security, immutability and permissionless nature of Bitcoin while enabling smart contracts and layer 2 scaling. It aims to capture the total network value through its "store of value" crypto-economic design and native token, the CKByte.

Nervos CKB (Common Knowledge Base) is a layer 1 blockchain, a decentralized and secure layer that provides common knowledge custody for the network. Common knowledge refers to states that are verified by global consensus. Crypto-assets are an example of common knowledge.

In Nervos, the CKB and all layer 2 protocols work together to serve the crypto-economy. CKB (or layer 1) is where state is stored and defined, and layer 2 is the generation layer (or computation layer, these two terms are interchangeable) that processes most transactions and generates new states. Layer 2 participants submit newly generated states to the CKB eventually at the time they deem necessary. If those states pass the corresponding verification performed by nodes in a global network, the CKB stores them in a peer-to-peer node securely.

The layered architecture separates state and computation, providing each layer more flexibility and scalability. For example, blockchains on the generation layer (layer 2) may use different consensus algorithms. CKB is the lowest layer with the broadest consensus and provides the most secure consensus in the Nervos network. However, different applications might prefer different consensus scopes and forcing all applications to use CKB’s consensus would be inefficient. Applications can choose the appropriate generation methods based on their particular needs. The only time these applications will need to submit states to CKB for broader agreement is when they need to make these states common knowledge that has been verified by the CKB's global consensus.