Kadena is a fast, secure, and scalable blockchain using the Chainweb consensus protocol. Chainweb is a braided, parallelized Proof Of Work consensus mechanism that improves throughput and scalability while maintaining the security and integrity found in Bitcoin.

Read our whitepapers:

• Chainweb: A Proof-of-Work Parallel-Chain Architecture for Massive Throughput
• Agent-based Simulations of Blockchain Protocols illustrated via Kadena's Chainweb

For additional information, press, and development inquires, please refer to the Kadena website

• Wiki
• Installing Chainweb
  • Instructions for Linux Users
  • Instructions for Mac Users
• Running Chainweb Node
  • Configuring a Chainweb Node
    • Specifying Bootstrap Nodes
    • Specifying your Public Identity
    • Specifying your Mining Identity
    • Specifying a Log Level
  • Mining for a Chainweb Network
• Chainweb Design
  • Component Structure Details
  • Architecture Overview

The Chainweb wiki serves as a source of information that receives regular updates. You can find the chainweb Wiki here, including a list of frequently asked questions regarding network information, how to explore blocks, diagnosing error messages, and more here.

If you have additions or comments, please submit a pull request or raise an issue.

The binaries can be found here

If you are on Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS or any other Apt-based distribution, you will need to install rocksdb with the following command:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install -y librocksdb-dev zlib1g-dev libtinfo-dev libsqlite3-dev libz3-dev z3

If this is not available, then please view the Rocksdb site for alternative modes of installation.

For all other distributions not using Apt (RHEL, Gentoo, Arch, etc), please consult your distro's repositories for librocksdb5.8, tinfo, zlib, z3 and install with its preferred package manager, or follow the alternative modes of installation described in Rocksdb.

At this point, you are ready to run a Chainweb node

Using the brew package manager, issue the following commands to download Chainweb's dependencies

brew update
brew install z3
brew install sqlite
brew install rocksdb

Chainweb is a Haskell project, and can be built in several ways.

• Homebrew: brew install git
• Installer

To get the code, you can go here

You have the code, now let's pick a build tool.

The fastest way to build and run chainweb is to use the Nix package manager which has binary caching capabilities that allow you to download pre-built binaries for everything needed by Chainweb. For detailed instructions see our wiki.

When the build is finished, you can run chainweb with the following command:

./result/ghc/chainweb/bin/chainweb-node

• stack >= 1.9
  • Mac (Homebrew): brew install haskell-stack
  • General Linux / Mac

(You may also need to install zlib, openssl, and sqlite.)

Stack is a Haskell build tool that manages compiler and dependency versions for you. It's easy to install and use.

To build a chainweb-node binary:

stack build

This will compile a runnable version of chainweb-node, which you can run via:

stack exec -- chainweb-node

Alternatively, stack install will install the binary to ~/.local/bin/, which you may need to add to your path. Then, you can call chainweb-node as-is.

• ghc >= 8.4 (Haskell compiler) and cabal >= 2.2 (Haskell build-tool)
  • Linux / Mac

(You may also need to install zlib, openssl, and sqlite.)

Cabal is the original build tool for Haskell. You will need a version of GHC installed on your machine to use it.

To build a chainweb-node binary:

# Only necessary if you haven't done this recently.
cabal new-update

# Build the project.
cabal new-build

To install a runnable binary to ~/.cabal/bin/:

cabal new-install

This section assumes you've installed the chainweb-node binary somewhere sensible, or otherwise have a simple way to refer to it. Please note that by default, the in-process mining is turned on; for instructions on how to turn it off, please refer to the Mining Guide.

Chainweb has many configuration options. Although there are command-line flags for all of them, in practice we use a config file:

./chainweb-node --print-config > config.yaml

Then, to run a node:

./chainweb-node --config-file=config.yaml

This will run a local Node on your machine, and you will see a flurry of activity. However, your Node won't be connected to the wider network yet. For that, we must configure Chainweb and change some defaults.

All available command-line options are shown by running:

chainweb-node --help

But we recommend working with a configuration file. The following instructions assume that you have generated such a file, as shown above.

To connect to the wider network, we must communiciate with some initial Peer. We call such a peer a Bootstrap Node. We define these in the peers list:

chainweb:
  ... # other settings
  p2p:
    ... # other settings
    peers: []

Let's update it to include one of Kadena's public Bootstraps:

peers:
  - address:
      hostname: us1.testnet.chainweb.com
      port: 443
    id: null

Since peers is a list, you can specify as many as you like, including other powerful Nodes that you manage.

You need to inform other Nodes how to talk back to you. This is also the information that they send along to their neighbours as part of the Peer Network:

chainweb:
  p2p:
    peer:
      ... # other settings
      hostaddress:
        hostname: localhost
        port: 0

localhost is no good.

hostaddress:
  hostname: <your-public-ip-here>
  port: 443

Keep in mind that you may have to perform Port Forwarding if your machine is behind a router.

See our Mining Guide for details. Without a properly defined Mining Identity, your mining effort will be wasted.

Don't want to mine? Use either --disable-mining on the command-line, or set:

chainweb:
  miner:
    enable: false

Chainweb runs on Info by default. If you'd prefer something quieter, like Warn, set:

logging:
  logger:
    log_level: warn

Detailed mining instructions can be found in our Mining Guide.

The production components are:

• chainweb library: It provides the implementation for the different components of a chainweb-node.

• chainweb-node: An application that runs a Chainweb node. It maintains copies of a number of chains from a given Chainweb instance. It provides interfaces (command-line and RPC) for directly interacting with the Chainweb or for implementing applications such as miners and transaction management tools.

• chainweb-miner: A stand-alone Mining Client.

• chainweb-tests: A test suite for the Chainweb library and chainweb-node.

For a detailed description of the Kadena architecture, see here.