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I am looking for a library that provides a blockchain, without needing a consensus mechanism. 50% of the the need is to gain experience and 50% is for a couple

I am looking for a library that provides a blockchain, without needing a consensus mechanism. 50% of the the need is to gain experience and 50% is for a couple of light weight projects. I was hoping this was something I could try out but from the comments it looks like not. I use nodejs so extra points for that, but I am open to other alternatives. An example project would be to set up a local swap market, where users can swap appliances for swap-coins, then spend those for other appliances at a later time.

ConcernedCoder 8y ago
IMHO a "blockchain without a consensus mechanism" is tantamount to a security door without a lock. The whole point of "blockchain" being that all transactions on it are correct and verifiable via a consensus mechanism, i.e. a distributed, non-centralized trust mechanism where you don't have to trust one individual or company to get it right. If you really want to record transactions without a consensus mechanism, use a database.
jnwatson 8y ago
The only mildly sophisticated part of the blockchain itself is the Merkle tree. You can find lots of Node libraries for that. For every new record, add it to the tree. When your tree gets big enough (i.e. hits maximum block size), sign it along with the hash of the last one, and then start a new Merkle tree. Congrats, you have a blockchain.
random3 8y ago
Take a look at https://github.com/ethereumjs/ https://github.com/ethereumjs/ the Ethereum's JavaScript implementation. If you want a good ready to use development tool look at https://truffleframework.com/ https://truffleframework.com/ - it's literally a wrapper around ethereum-js along with some friendly programming tools for smart contracts, etc.
y0ghur7_xxx 8y ago
A blockchain "without a consensus mechanism" is git: every commit has at least one parent. There is no consensus mechanism, as everybody can commit "to the blockchain".

ConcernedCoder 8y ago

IMHO a "blockchain without a consensus mechanism" is tantamount to a security door without a lock. The whole point of "blockchain" being that all transactions on it are correct and verifiable via a consensus mechanism, i.e. a distributed, non-centralized trust mechanism where you don't have to trust one individual or company to get it right. If you really want to record transactions without a consensus mechanism, use a database.

jnwatson 8y ago

The only mildly sophisticated part of the blockchain itself is the Merkle tree. You can find lots of Node libraries for that. For every new record, add it to the tree. When your tree gets big enough (i.e. hits maximum block size), sign it along with the hash of the last one, and then start a new Merkle tree. Congrats, you have a blockchain.

random3 8y ago

Take a look at https://github.com/ethereumjs/ https://github.com/ethereumjs/ the Ethereum's JavaScript implementation. If you want a good ready to use development tool look at https://truffleframework.com/ https://truffleframework.com/ - it's literally a wrapper around ethereum-js along with some friendly programming tools for smart contracts, etc.

y0ghur7_xxx 8y ago

A blockchain "without a consensus mechanism" is git: every commit has at least one parent. There is no consensus mechanism, as everybody can commit "to the blockchain".