Authorized signers are trusted nodes that create blocks, sign them, and distribute them to other nodes. Similar to miners in a Proof-of-Work (PoW) system in that they create blocks and sign them but without the mining cost.

A list of authorized signers is maintained on the blockchain. Only authorized nodes can sign blocks and all blocks are verified that this is true by checking the signer is in the authorized list. The signing algorithm is essentially the same signature algorithm as PoW but with a different set of headers. PoW-specific headers will be removed and additional headers added to enable voting.

Given N authorized signers, a signer may only sign a block every (N/2) + 1. This ensures that someone would need to control > 50% of signers to perform a malicious attack [6].

This means that more than half of the authorized signers on the network would have to collude to attack or control the network. Given that GoChain’s authorized signers have a combined market cap of over $100 billion as of Q1 2020, there is little to no incentive for them to ever consider this.

Additionally, since all signers are known entities, bad actors risk being sued in court or prosecuted criminally. This is all to say that the risk of a 51% attack against the network is extremely unlikely.