Network, Relay & Client Sync • Estimated 20m

Consensus vs Policy

protocol.consensus-vs-policy

Consensus rules determine whether a block or transaction is valid for the whole network, while policy rules determine what an individual node will relay, mine, or keep in its mempool. A transaction can be consensus-valid yet still be non-standard or locally rejected by policy.

Open visual node page • Browse the concept library

Curated resources (3)

• Bitcoin Core Academy: Hardcoded Consensus Values (article) Clear contrast between immutable consensus validation and implementation-specific rule boundaries.
• Bitcoin Core Academy: Mempool Lifecycle (article) Shows where local relay and admission policy diverge from raw consensus validity.
• Mastering Bitcoin (book) Broad technical reference for the wallet, transaction, and protocol ideas that support this topic.

Direct prerequisites (1)

• Consensus Rules

Direct dependents (0)

• None

Canonical site description: Interactive Bitcoin knowledge graph with prerequisites, curated resources, and structured topic pages.