OxideChain 🦀

OxideChain is a lightweight, experimental blockchain implementation written in Rust. Designed for educational purposes, it explores the fundamental concepts of distributed ledger technology, including peer-to-peer networking, Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus, and UTXO-based transaction models.

🚀 Features

• Proof of Work Mining: Implements a naive PoW algorithm to secure the network.
• UTXO Transaction Model: Secure transaction handling with input/output validation.
• P2P Networking: Decentralized communication between nodes.
• Wallet Management: Create wallets, generate addresses, and manage keys.
• Persistent Storage: Uses sled (and SQLite) for persistent block storage.
• Merkle Tree: Efficient data verification using Merkle roots.
• CLI Interface: Easy-to-use command line tools for interaction.

🛠️ Architecture

The project is modularized for clarity:

• block: Core block structure and validation.
• blockchain: Chain management and storage logic.
• transaction: Transaction creation and signing.
• wallet: Key pair generation and address management.
• p2p: Networking layer for node communication.

📦 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Rust & Cargo installed.

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/Alkamal01/oxide-chain.git
cd oxide-chain

Build the project:

cargo build --release

Usage

1. Create a Wallet Generate a new wallet to receive rewards.

cargo run createwallet
# Output: address 3JGDNu6Pnuench1hoXyibBemfYjGT8RHRS

2. Initialize the Blockchain Create the genesis block and award the initial supply to your address.

cargo run create <YOUR_ADDRESS>

3. Run a Node / Mine Start the node and beginning mining blocks (check CLI for specific mining commands if separate).

cargo run startnode

4. transact Send coins to another address.

cargo run send <FROM_ADDRESS> <TO_ADDRESS> <AMOUNT>

5. Inspect Chain Print the current state of the blockchain.

cargo run printchain

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This is an educational project, so feel free to open issues or PRs to improve code quality or add new features (e.g., a better consensus algorithm, smarter mempool).

📄 License

This project is open-source and available under the MIT License.