Polkadot consensus and Honey Badger BFT

Question

I want to know the relationship between Polkadot consensus and Honey Badger BFT (HBBFT). Is Polkadot's consensus using HBBFT?

Answer 1

No, Polkadot's consensus doesn't use HBBFT. When the original vision paper was written (https://polkadot.network/PolkaDotPaper.pdf), it was mentioned as a possible component or inspiration for research to be done later. But Polkadot ended up using a custom hybrid consensus mechanism composed of BABE and GRANDPA. Neither of these use threshold encryption or are asynchronously live (which is the hallmark of HBBFT).