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RISCy Docs

Instant Finality (Pre-Consensus)

Instant finality is one of RISCy Network’s most important properties. A transaction reaches final, irreversible settlement in seconds — not after waiting for many block confirmations.

This is made possible by pre-consensus, an approach pioneered on eCash by Amaury Sechet (who forked Bitcoin Cash to create eCash). RISCy’s instant-finality integration is based on that work.

The problem: probabilistic finality

Classic Nakamoto consensus (Proof-of-Work) only gives probabilistic finality. A transaction is buried under more and more blocks, and the deeper it is, the less likely it is to be reversed — but it is never guaranteed final. In practice this means:

  • Waiting for multiple confirmations before trusting a payment.
  • Exposure to chain reorganizations (reorgs) that can undo recent blocks.
  • Application code that must handle the possibility of a reverted transaction.

The solution: pre-consensus

Pre-consensus adds an Avalanche-based voting layer on top of Proof-of-Work. Before transactions are included in a block, nodes use repeated random sampling to quickly agree on the order and validity of those transactions. Once the network converges, the result is treated as final.

This is a Nakamoto / Avalanche hybrid:

  • Nakamoto (PoW) provides long-term, Bitcoin-anchored security and ordering.
  • Avalanche pre-consensus provides fast agreement and instant finality.

According to eCash, this design delivers transaction finality within roughly 2 seconds (under 3 seconds in most cases) without sacrificing decentralization or resilience.

The exact finality timing, validator/stake requirements, and parameters for RISCy Network are TBD and will be documented here. The figures above are eCash’s published numbers and may differ on RISCy.

Why it matters

Instant finality unlocks use cases that probabilistic chains struggle with:

  • Payments — what you see is final; no waiting, no reorg anxiety.
  • DeFi — multi-step strategies (swaps, liquidations) settle between steps in real time, reducing slippage and execution risk.
  • Cross-chain / atomic swaps — both parties can verify their side is final before releasing assets, enabling safe interoperability.
  • Builder apps — Web2-like responsiveness for users interacting on-chain.

How it fits RISCy

RISCy combines three layers:

  1. Nexa-derived UTXO base layer — parallel transaction validation.
  2. eCash-style pre-consensus — instant finality via Avalanche voting.
  3. Drivechain (BIP-300/301) — Bitcoin-anchored security.

The native coin used for fees and (where applicable) staking is RISCY.

Details on how pre-consensus interacts with the RISC-V VM and the contract execution model are TBD.

Next steps