The Komodo platform offers notary as a service (NaaS).
Utilizing NaaS, a blockchain is queried at a predetermined interval for its block height and the hash of the block. Each Komodo notary node does this with a local copy of the TARGET blockchain. In total, there are 64 notary nodes, so each of these is doing this processing to determine what the peers of that node are stating the correct chain is.
The Komodo chain then finds a consensus among the 64 notaries in which chain is correct. It notes down the block hash and height of the correct chain and submits a transaction on the Komodo network with a hash of this information. This process is the first half of the notarization. This data is stored as a message in the transaction, which eventually gets included on the Komodo blockchain. The transaction ID of this is then sent to the TARGET blockchain for storage — fulfilling the second half of the notarization process. By doing this the TARGET blockchain makes a reference to the Komodo chain and the Komodo chain makes a reference towards the TARGET blockchain.
Komodo also notarizes itself against the largest Proof of Work blockchain in existence: bitcoin. Komodo’s chain is secured by this notarization process. To successfully attack Komodo and reverse blocks, one must successfully attack and reverse blocks on bitcoin- a near impossible task to execute currently. Near impossible because any big party with the financial and technology resources could probably do it, but no such party exists today.
Therefore, notarizing the TARGET chain against Komodo means you indirectly notarized against bitcoin. This is why the dPoW is robust and practicle to use as a security mechanism for blockchains with lower hashrates.
ChainZilla offers dPoW integration services for third party blockchains. If you're interested in being added to Komodo's dPoW security layer please write us at contact@chainzilla.io (annual cost of notarizations varies on the individual configutation of the assetchain or blockchain)
Resources
dPoW: https://wiki.komodoplatform.com/wiki/Delayed_Proof_of_Work_(dPoW)