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id: q5
title: Does the ThreeFold use consensus?
---

ThreeFold uses blockchain technology only for what it's good for - Smart Contracts and Transactions. 
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An alternative to consensus mechanisms are peer-to-peer systems. While offering many similar benefits they are quite different in their design.
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Crypto networks are internet-based networks, they use consensus mechanisms such as blockchains and cryptocurrencies (or tokens), which in turn incentivize the participants of said consensus (miners or delegates). While ThreeFold does use a blockchain and has it's own digital currency, instead of focusing on building a network that would be governed by everyone, it enables everyone to have their own governance mechanism. Every person or organization benefits from it's own private and secure environment on the ThreeFold Grid.
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For instance, on the ThreeFold Grid, every user is able to store, run and access data and wokloads via their private key. When hosting data and workloads, a smart contract is created and stored in ThreeFold's blockchain database, which will then operate and execute their private environment via Threefold's autonomous technology. This provides a fully sovereign infrastructure model.
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Put simply, instead of using consensus, peer-to-peer technology is used to provide true data sovereignty.
