About

Python 3-based Proof of Work CLI tool for Crypto Mining.

Usage

Currently only an example subcommand is implemented (see source ). The purpose of this subcommand is educational and is heavily based on the bitcoin wiki: Proof of Work documentation. When executed it runs a crypto mining simulation using SHA-256 with the following output:

$ python pow.py example
Hello, world!0 => 1312af178c253f84028d480a6adc1e25e81caa44c749ec81976192e2ec934c64
Hello, world!1 => e9afc424b79e4f6ab42d99c81156d3a17228d6e1eef4139be78e948a9332a7d8
Hello, world!2 => ae37343a357a8297591625e7134cbea22f5928be8ca2a32aa475cf05fd4266b7
Hello, world!3 => 098edd39515007adf089d1a8df453b5add12dde302549f4af79c5f3371cbbcc2
Hello, world!4 => a86de1d026a9e783b98a7d609d6037b13791e71acbb996bb5f971c05f9cdbe3d
Hello, world!5 => c81000834046e31559f9519f281257ca267ff9aa1409c97e201e96ec0b6ad99f
Hello, world!6 => d6bab161aa0d2dc55ab90b3414db2e332460744a796f408070cfb57f7e242ea9
Hello, world!7 => 02af402de37a5f2c0a2aee17eec1924c64536ba3411e065d177d70cee6ff30bc
Hello, world!8 => 86dfdfc2ff09863b3e25ed92971e37f21ff9838c0455e5b3c67daf66882e6f2f
Hello, world!9 => 9a81709a7290da8d5515cdd87afec495bd5558a0fa886682951fe127b14fe5a9
Hello, world!10 => 14e0873e3d96d95e2da26fa8c0d247e797258639c8828ec41d958b20f0225d8e
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Hello, world!4240 => 9bf52acd113993fd569d6a4ef2916f5d88fd7cfd93f12aa79587b895a06f8671
Hello, world!4241 => c1916540254a1b47bef14f57ee48e5dfc8bf6c354b5da1724e98fe14a7a08b0c
Hello, world!4242 => bd1f27a8e576f85a75a6b77945c6c5e724d3b6bea7a1093accfe6a905b02ef66
Hello, world!4243 => 2be850f587ae69172cc6b588cee3623b6709359ab226354469a7bfc154a10f33
Hello, world!4244 => 62b100d51d8b5f04c2be7a89e9e7babf49350567cffe8f00f326a625084557c4
Hello, world!4245 => 848deec0d6123c0ed10aad31bf32e9467158db8b0d1df88e03aeeda79f291f31
Hello, world!4246 => 8e46c058ec660406a1f90e323f352512fb17327ccc64847710ae3430ac8fc4a9
Hello, world!4247 => 97f387b4d3f4cb88d2f8a28c719148500d54c87f3d506268d340dd45b3549191
Hello, world!4248 => 6e110d98b388e77e9c6f042ac6b497cec46660deef75a55ebc7cfdf65cc0b965
Hello, world!4249 => c004190b822f1669cac8dc37e761cb73652e7832fb814565702245cf26ebb9e6
    New POW found => nonce 4250
Hello, world!4250 => 0000c3af42fc31103f1fdc0151fa747ff87349a4714df7cc52ea464e12dcd4e9
Hash Value: 1350565582647790482127632554504241516291697500941742491868079705537959145
Target:     1766847064778384329583297500742918515827483896875618958121606201292619776

We see that the while loop found in the function def for example (see source), will simply loop forever, incrementing nonce until a hash of the concatenation of the trx (the transaction hash, in this case the string Hello, world!) and the nonce yields a hash with a value less than the target.

In the case of this example, the target is set to 2^240 which has an integer value of 1766847064778384329583297500742918515827483896875618958121606201292619776. When the nonce value equals 4250, is combined with the trx value of Hello, world! (i.e. Hello, world!4250), and is hashed, we finally get that magic hash 0000c3af42fc31103f1fdc0151fa747ff87349a4714df7cc52ea464e12dcd4e9 that has a value of 1350565582647790482127632554504241516291697500941742491868079705537959145.

Simply by inspection we can see that this new hash value is less than the target. Our Proof of Work is complete.

Environment Setup

Here we will discuss several ways for setting up a Python 3 environment.

VirtualEnv

The source code is written in Python 3, please bare that in mind:

$ git clone https://github.com/RagingTiger/powpy
$ cd powpy
$ virtualenv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ pip install -r src/requirements.txt
$ python src/pow.py example

Docker

My personal choice is just to build or run the docker image.

Run

The tigerj/powpyimage is multi-arch for arm, arm64, and amd64:

$ docker run --rm -it tigerj/powpy

• Note: This will simply run the example subcommand by default.

Build

$ git clone https://github.com/RagingTiger/powpy
$ cd powpy
$ docker build -t powpy .