monetarium

Monetarium is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency implementing a dual-coin system (VAR + SKA). It utilizes a hybrid proof-of-work and proof-of-stake mining system to ensure that a small group cannot dominate the flow of transactions or make changes to Monetarium without the input of the community. The primary unit of the currency is called a varta (VAR).

monetarium is a full node implementation of Monetarium written in Go (golang).

It acts as a fully-validating chain daemon for the Monetarium cryptocurrency. monetarium maintains the entire past transactional ledger of Monetarium and allows relaying of transactions to other Monetarium nodes around the world.

This software is currently under active development.

It is important to note that monetarium does NOT include wallet functionality.

The term 'full node' is short for 'fully-validating node' and refers to software that fully validates all transactions and blocks, as opposed to trusting a 3rd party. In addition to validating transactions and blocks, nearly all full nodes also participate in relaying transactions and blocks to other full nodes around the world, thus forming the peer-to-peer network that is the backbone of the Monetarium cryptocurrency.

The full node distinction is important, since full nodes are not the only type of software participating in the Monetarium peer network. For instance, there are 'lightweight nodes' which rely on full nodes to serve the transactions, blocks, and cryptographic proofs they require to function, as well as relay their transactions to the rest of the global network.

As described in the previous section, the Monetarium cryptocurrency relies on having a peer-to-peer network of nodes that fully validate all transactions and blocks and then relay them to other full nodes.

Running a full node with monetarium contributes to the overall security of the network, increases the available paths for transactions and blocks to relay, and helps ensure there are an adequate number of nodes available to serve lightweight clients, such as Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) wallets.

Without enough full nodes, the network could be unable to expediently serve users of lightweight clients which could force them to have to rely on centralized services that significantly reduce privacy and are vulnerable to censorship.

In terms of individual benefits, since monetarium fully validates every block and transaction, it provides the highest security and privacy possible when used in conjunction with a wallet that also supports directly connecting to it in full validation mode.

• 16 GB disk space (increases over time)
• 2 GB memory (RAM)
• ~150 MB/day download, ~1.5 GB/day upload
  • Plus one-time initial download of the entire block chain
• Windows 10 (server preferred), macOS, Linux
• High uptime

So, you've decided to help the network by running a full node. Great! Running monetarium is simple. All you need to do is install monetarium on a machine that is connected to the internet and meets the minimum recommended specifications, and launch it.

Also, make sure your firewall is configured to allow inbound connections to port 9508.

Pre-built binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Choose your platform:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/monetarium/monetarium-node/main/install.sh | bash

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/monetarium/monetarium-node/main/install.sh | bash

powershell -c "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/monetarium/monetarium-node/main/install.ps1'))"

The script downloads the latest release binaries, creates configs, and sets up the node daemon + wallet. On Linux/macOS it creates a systemd service; on Windows it creates a scheduled task.

PS> git clone https://github.com/monetarium/monetarium-node $env:USERPROFILE\src\monetarium
PS> cd $env:USERPROFILE\src\monetarium
PS> go install . .\cmd\...
PS> monetarium -V

$ git clone https://github.com/monetarium/monetarium-node $HOME/src/monetarium
$ (cd $HOME/src/monetarium && go install . ./...)
$ monetarium -V

The project does not officially provide container images. However, all of the necessary files to build your own lightweight non-root container image based on scratch from the latest source code are available in contrib/docker.

It is also worth noting that, to date, most users typically prefer to run monetarium directly, without using a container, for at least a few reasons:

• monetarium is a static binary that does not require root privileges and therefore does not suffer from the usual deployment issues that typically make containers attractive
• It is harder and more verbose to run monetarium from a container as compared to normal:
  • monetarium is designed to automatically create a working default configuration which means it just works out of the box without the need for additional configuration for almost all typical users
  • The blockchain data and configuration files need to be persistent which means configuring and managing a docker data volume
  • Running non-root containers with docker requires special care in regards to permissions

All tests and linters may be run using the script run_tests.sh.

./run_tests.sh

The integrated github issue tracker is used for this project.