README.md

Sparkz - The modular blockchain framework

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Sparkz

Sparkz 2 is modular blockchain framework is Scala language which allows for free and limitless experimentation with a wide variety of designs.

It is a fork of Scorex framework, which can be found at https://github.com/hyperledger-labs/Scorex.

Motivation

If you have a new design for a blockchain system, there are few options available in regards with an implementation:

• you can fork codebase of a Bitcoin or Ethereum client. However, such clients are optimized towards concrete protocol, thus implementing something different would be a cumbersome task.
• there are some modular frameworks, such as Scorex, where you can change consensus layer, or transactional layer, or both. Still, these modules have concrete interfaces, so for many designs more low-level and abstract approach was needed.

We have read a lot of research papers to make Scorex 2 supporting their implementations. Its abstract core allows for implementing a broad range of systems, including ones with multiple types of blocks and non-linear history.

Features

• Compact, functional code
• Modular design with fine granularity
• Scala language
• Asynchronous networking layer on top of TCP
• JSON API
• Cryptographic primitives externalized into separate scrypto framework
• Some examples provided, including one working in production

Documentation and Communication.

Please join maillist at https://groups.io/g/scorex-dev. There is tutorial in progress, available at https://github.com/ScorexFoundation/ScorexTutorial.

Examples

There are two examples of blockchain systems built with Scorex:

• implementation of TwinsCoin, a hybrid (Proof-of-Work + Proof-of-Stake) cryptocurrency is provided in this repository, please check dedicated readme.
• TreasuryCoin is an experimental implementation of the perspective treasury system described in A Treasury System for Cryptocurrencies: Enabling Better Collaborative Intelligence.
• Ergo Platform, a Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency and financial contracts platform, with support for stateless nodes, different operating regimes with up to 4 possible sections in a block etc.

Development Plans

Final 1.0 release of Scorex 2 is not done but near. Currently we're polishing and auditing the codebase towards the release. Then we will consider further plans, possibly including:

• Improved networking layer
• Support for Scala 3
• More examples, possibly including non-linear systems (such as DAGs)

Contributions

Contributions are welcome! Please take a look into issues. Testing codebase is still not perfect at the moment, so writing a test is not just good for start, but useful for the product as well.

New examples would be very helpful as well!

Release

To publish release version to Sonatype:

• make a tag with version number vX.Y.Z (used by sbt-dynver to set version in build.sbt);
• use the new tag to make a Github release, which triggers release.yml workflow and publishes release version to Sonatype;