Go Blockchain Implementation 🚧 (Work In Progress)

A foundational blockchain implementation in Go focusing on core concepts and principles. This educational project is actively being developed to demonstrate and explore blockchain technology through hands-on code.

Current Features 🎯

• Basic blockchain structure with proof-of-work mining
• SHA-256 hash generation and chain validation
• Configurable mining difficulty (leading zeros)
• Block generation time tracking
• Genesis block creation

Planned Features 🔄

• Transactions and wallet implementation
• Merkle trees for efficient verification
• Distributed network capabilities
• P2P networking
• Consensus mechanisms
• Smart contracts
• Block persistence (database integration)
• Web interface for blockchain exploration

Installation 🛠️

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/go-blockchain.git
cd go-blockchain

2. Ensure Go is installed (version 1.16 or higher)

go version

3. Run the program

go run main.go

Usage 💡

The program prompts for the number of leading zeros required for the proof-of-work:

Enter how many zeros the hash must start with:
> 4

Example output:

Genesis Block:
Id: 1
Timestamp: 1683924000000000000
Magic Number: 123456
Hash of the previous block:
0
Hash of the block:
0000a1b2c3d4e5f6...
Block was generating for 2 seconds

Block:
Id: 2
...

How It Works 🔍

Block Mining Process

1. User specifies required number of leading zeros
2. Program generates random magic numbers
3. Each magic number is used to create a potential block hash
4. When a hash with the required zeros is found, the block is created
5. Block is linked to previous block via hash chain
6. Generation time is recorded

Validation

• Each block contains the previous block's hash
• Hash must start with specified number of zeros
• Genesis block has a previous hash of "0"

Code Structure 📚

Block Structure

type Block struct {
    Id           int
    Magic_number int32
    Time_stamp   int64
    PrevHash     string
    Hash         string
    Gen_time     time.Duration
}

Key Functions

// Creates the genesis block
func CreateGenesisBlock(numZeros int) Block

// Creates a new block linked to the previous one
func CreateNewBlock(prevBlock Block, id int, numZeros int) Block

// Generates SHA-256 hash
func GeneratHash(id int, timestamp int64, magicNumber int32, preHash string, numZeros int) string

// Validates hash meets difficulty requirement
func validateHash(hash string, numZeros int) bool

Educational Value 📖

This project is designed to help understand:

• Blockchain fundamentals
• Proof-of-work concepts
• Cryptographic hashing
• Chain validation
• Block generation and mining
• Timestamp and duration tracking

Contributing 🤝

This is a work in progress, and contributions are welcome! Areas you can help with:

1. Implementing planned features
2. Improving documentation
3. Adding tests
4. Code optimization
5. Bug fixes

To contribute:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

⚠️ Disclaimer

This is an educational project designed for learning blockchain concepts. It's actively being developed and improved. Not intended for production use.

License 📄

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Contact 📫

Your Name - @AviTheBrown

Project Link: https://github.com/AviTheBrown/GoBlockchain

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Feel free to contribute, suggest features, or use for educational purposes! Star ⭐ the repository if you find it helpful!