The "Byzantine Generals Problem" is a problem used to describe the problem that occurs when one or more components of a computer system fail. The terminology of the challenges faced. These failures can cause incorrect information to be passed within the system, affecting its performance. The name comes from a 1982 research paper that compared the problem to historical military scenarios.

Imagine this scenario: Several divisions of the Byzantine army plan to siege an enemy city. Each division has a general, and they can only communicate with each other through messengers. The generals must agree on a plan that meets two requirements: 1) all trustworthy generals follow the same plan; 2) a few bad guys cannot make good guys follow a harmful plan.

The main challenge is how generals can securely share information and reach consensus. If they can't agree, their offense could fail. It's also a problem if a cunning general deliberately puts others in danger by providing misinformation.

In a distributed computer network like a blockchain, each participant The player (node) is like a general. For the system to work properly, a majority of nodes must agree on the same instructions and follow them. Byzantine faults can occur if certain nodes malfunction or become malicious. Systems that function normally despite these errors are said to be Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT).

Bitcoin uses a method called proof-of-work to solve this problem. As each "general" (node) determines a plan, they ask the computer to solve a challenging problem. One of them is expected to find the solution within 10 minutes. When a solution is found, the node shares it with others, along with their plan. Then others follow this new plan.

By examining the proof-of-work chain, each node can see how much computing power is being used and that a majority of computers agree on the plan. Therefore, they can trust and follow the plan with the longest proof-of-work chain because the majority supports it.