Mini-Chain CLI — A Tiny, Playful Blockchain in Your Terminal.

A lightweight, interactive command-line blockchain simulator written in Rust, designed to demonstrate core blockchain concepts such as transactions, blocks, proof-of-work mining, merkle roots, and chain state. All with a polished CLI experience.

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🚀 Key Features

• Interactive CLI using inquire
• Proof-of-Work Mining with configurable difficulty
• Merkle Tree Construction for transaction integrity
• Mining Rewards automatically added per block
• Pretty Block Output using tables & boxed layouts
• Runtime Configuration (difficulty & reward)
• Educational & Inspectable — no hidden magic

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🖥️ Demo

Mining a Block

⛏️  BLOCK MINED
+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| field       | value                                                            |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Block Hash  | 000dfd975967784aab632be4b77a4f5762e65b7615ea8da5eff099f9fd92     |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Timestamp   | 1767717755                                                       |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Nonce       | 112834                                                           |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Prev Hash   | 006252df80d77b684ca05dfc5637d6ea41a787ee52ea18986fc1fa711773     |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Merkle Root | 573c8d775b99dcf83151d427c4bbfa77c81fb069295f8df35b772194e71295fb |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Difficulty  | 2                                                                |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tx Count    | 2                                                                |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+


📦 Transactions
#0 root → root | amount: 2
#1 toly → raj  | amount: 15

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Commands

Command	What it does	Status
New transaction	Create a new transaction	Done
Mine block	Mine a new block with PoW	Done
Change difficulty	Update mining difficulty	Done
Change reward	Update mining reward	Done
Exit	Exit the CLI	Done

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Quick Start

1. Install

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/bytehash69/mini-chain.git
cd mini-chain
cargo install --path .

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2. Usage

Launch Mini-Chain :

mini-chain

Navigate using arrow keys, press Enter to select.

⚡ Mini-Chain — A Tiny Blockchain in Your Terminal

? Choose a command:
  > New transaction
    Mine block
    Change difficulty
    Change reward
    Exit

Mining a block:

? Choose a command: Mine block
⠋ Mining... nonce 15069

✔ Block mined!

Creating a transaction:

? Choose a command: New transaction
? Sender: toly
? Receiver: raj
? Amount: 10

✔ Transaction added

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🏗️ Project Structure

src/
├── main.rs          # Application entry point
├── blockchain.rs    # Core blockchain logic
├── prompt.rs        # User input handling (inquire)
├── ui.rs            # CLI visuals (spinner, tables)
└── commands/
    └── mod.rs       # Command definitions

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🧠 Learning Goals

This project is built to help understand:

• How blocks link via hashes
• How Proof-of-Work functions internally
• How Merkle roots secure transactions
• How state is managed in a blockchain
• How to build clean Rust CLIs

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🚧 Limitations (By Design)

• Not networked (single-node)
• No persistence (in-memory only)
• Not cryptographically hardened
• Uses floats for amounts (educational)

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions, improvements, and refactors are welcome.

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📄 License

MIT License