Generic Blockchain

Description:

This repo contains a blockchain, that is able to be set up with different (generic) Transaction payloads. The netowrking and processing is done asynchronously.

Dependencies

serde = { version = "1.0.94", features = ["derive"]}
serde_json = "1.0.39"
serde_derive = "1.0.94"

Derivable serialization traits used for messages and structs to be used in networking.

bytes = "0.4"
time = "0.1"
getopts = "0.2"
failure = "0.1.5"

Used in error handling, timing, reading and writing to buffers (networking codec) and parsing cli arguments.

sequoia-openpgp = "0.8" # see bottom note
sha3 = "0.8.2"

Obviously used for the crypto module for hashing, the merkle tree, signing and encryption.

tokio = "0.1"
tokio-io = "0.1.12"
tokio-codec = "0.1.1"
tokio-core = "0.1"
futures = "0.1"
tokio-timer = "0.1"
uuid = { version = "0.7", features = ["serde", "v4"] }

Used to write the p2p server so that it doesnt block the node e.g. when mining (no messages are receivable anymore when doing it synchronously).

rocksdb = "0.10"

Database for persistent storage of peer tables, pgp keys and blockchain data structures when not mining.

Blockchain

• chain: data structure, transactions consensus mechanisms/block mining
• block: central data structure: stores transactions in a merkle tree
• generic transactions enabling different payloads

Node: P2P server using blockchain

• node: handling requests/messages from either other nodes or the command line, accepting incoming connections, answering peer discovery queries, bootstrap peer network, create transactions and broadcast transactions and mined blocks
• Messages & Codec related to networking
• Optional (storage manager: store relevant information (old blocks, keys, peer tables) persistently)

Crypto: Everything related to cryptography

• hashing functions
• the merkle tree implementation
• (generation of PGP keys)
• Optional (signature and verification)
• Optional (encryption and decryption of messages)

Optional Storage: Store relevant information that shall not reside in RAM

• Storage trait
• Optional working rocksdb backend
• Optional proper schemas for PGP keys, peer tables, blocks

Things not considered

• A Wallet for managing and reestablishing possibly differen accounts on a node
• scalability & security
• channel based networking as in the lightning protocol used by bitcoin
• proper routing to not spawn a channel for each client in the network as in the modified kademila protocol used by Ethereum 2.0
• Further Consensus mechanisms