This is an Actor-based Scala application that runs on an Akka cluster to simulate cryptocurrency mining activities on a decentralized blockchain network. It involves using of hash functions, Merkle trees and some basic PKCS cryptographic functions. Proof-of-Work is adopted as the concensus algorithm. For an overview of the application, please visit Genuine Blog.
UPDATE: A new version of this application using Akka Typed actors is available in a separate GitHub repo.
The application uses Akka classic actors and has been tested fully functional on Akka 2.5 and 2.6 on an expandable cluster, with each node simulating an independent miner. With the default configuration, it will launch an Akka cluster on a single host with two seed nodes at port 2551 and 2552 for additional nodes to join the cluster.
The main program takes 2 arguments: a port# and a path to the miner's public-key file; and an optional 3rd argument: "test" for a quick test (as opposed to entering a mining loop):
$ sbt "runMain akkablockchain.Main port# /path/to/minerPublicKey [test]"To save time for cryptographic key generation (required for user accounts) in application startup, a few public-keys (accountX_public.pem; X=0,..,9) have been created and saved under "{project-root}/src/main/resources/keys/". To generate additional keys, method generateKeyPairPemFiles() within the included Crypto class can be used.
Git-clone the repo to a local disk, open up separate shell command line terminals and launch the application from the project-root on separate terminals by binding them to different port#.
- Start 1st cluster seed node at port 2551 using account0 as 1st miner's account
$ sbt "runMain akkablockchain.Main 2551 src/main/resources/keys/account0_public.pem [test]"- Start 2nd cluster seed node at port 2552 using account1 as 2nd miner's account
$ sbt "runMain akkablockchain.Main 2552 src/main/resources/keys/account1_public.pem [test]"- Start another cluster node at port 2553 using account2 as 3rd miner's account
$ sbt "runMain akkablockchain.Main 2553 src/main/resources/keys/account2_public.pem [test]"- Start cluster nodes for additional miners at other ports