Tootchain

This is a bot running on the Mastodon network with which you can store messages on a cryptographically verifiable blockchain. The blockchain is also stored on Mastodon.

To create a so called transaction send a toot in following format:

@tootchain@toot.cafe !tx YOUR_MESSAGE

Technical info

Block time: 10 minutes
Max tx/block: 3 transactions
Hash function: sha256

Blockhash

The blockhash is calculated using following method:

blockhash = sha256([NONCE][TIMESTAMP][PREV_BLOCKHASH][DATA])

Every blockhash starts with 7007 (TOOT written in numbers)

Note: The previous_hash field is differently generated. See here.

Genesis Block

The genesis blockhash is 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Structure

Structure of a block

{
  "height": 84,
  "timestamp": 1530597001,
  "transactions": [
      {
      "sender": "bn4t",
      "data": "Hello World!"
    }
  ],
  "nonce": 44973,
  "previous_hash": "3bf51b443e872ad38e041a4537e10fcd515000eb3cefea6dbc5f5e6bbfcf2955"
}

Verify blocks

At the moment, blocks can unfortuantely only be verified manually, due to mastodons API limitations.

To verify a block you can use the verify.py script.

Set up your own Tootchain bot

Installation

The easiest way is to use the provided Docker image.

Run the image:

docker run --detach \
    --name tootchaind \
    --restart always \
    --env INSTANCE_URL=https://your.instance \
    --env BOT_EMAIL=bot@example.com \
    --env BOT_USERNAME=username \
    --env BOT_PW=your_password \
    registry.gitlab.com/bn4t/tootchaind:latest

Adjust block time

To adjust the block time, you need to clone the repo, set the cron interval (found in crontab.txt) to your desired value and build the image.

Thanks

I would like to thank @Nolan (Owner of toot.cafe Mastodon instance) for giving me permission to run this bot on his instance.

Thank you Nolan!