# Achieving Consensus > In the mint-based model, the mint was aware of all transactions and decided which arrived first. To accomplish this without a trusted party, transactions must be publicly announced \[1], and we need a system for participants to agree on a single history of the order in which they were received. > > \- Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin Whitepaper ![](/files/fMwlM7whXtNMXtG1bWPg) When the system is managed by a centralised party, the monitoring of which inputs are used in a transaction and their spent/unspent status is managed simply on a first seen basis. In Bitcoin, the system has no such means for centralised decision making so each node must operate as a self-contained mint. Public announcement of all transactions is critical to the sound operation of the system and provides the fastest means for participants in the competitive block building process to come to consensus on the order of events when a valid block is announced to the network. Without public announcement, every time a potential block is found, the discovering node must subsequently supply any missing transactions to the rest of the network which consumes time and resources, impacting its ability to operate as effectively and efficiently as possible. The first seen rule and its application to both transaction and block announcements is a core element of the incentives that drive the construction of the infrastructure that underpins the Bitcoin network. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://hub.bsvblockchain.org/higher-learning/bsv-academy/bsv-theory/transactions/achieving-consensus.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.