Chia Namespace - Chains

Author Jeff Cruikshank
Status Draft
Type Standard
Created 2023-05-24
Requires CAIP-2

Table of Contents

CAIP-2

For context, see the CAIP-2 specification.

Abstract

In CAIP-2 a general blockchain identification scheme is defined. This is the implementation of CAIP-2 for the Chia blockchain.

Chia Namespace

The namespace “chia” refers to the Chia open-source blockchain platform.

Rationale

Chia maintains multiple blockchains: a production blockchain (mainnet) and one or more test blockchains (testnet). Each blockchain is identified by its unique genesis challenge. The genesis challenge is a hex-encoded string representing a 256-bit value that serves as the previous block hash of the first block in the blockchain.

An identifier for a Chia blockchain consists of the namespace prefix “chia:” followed by a truncated form of the blockchain’s genesis challenge.

To conform to the CAIP-2 reference spec, references to Chia’s genesis challenges are truncated to the first 32 hex characters of the 256-bit value.

Example:

Mainnet’s full genesis challenge: ccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a3ff07eb358e8255a65c30a2dce0e5fbb

Truncation of the full genesis challenge: trunc("ccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a3ff07eb358e8255a65c30a2dce0e5fbb", 32)
` –> “ccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a”`

CAIP-2 Chia blockchain reference: "chia:ccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a"

Resolution Method

To resolve a blockchain reference for the Chia namespace, the block record for block 0 can be inspected. The block record will contain a previous block hash. The previous block hash for block height 0 will contain the genesis challenge for the blockchain.

Using a Chia blockchain explorer API like Spacescan, or FireAcademy’s Node as a Service API can simplify the task of inspecting block records. Note: FireAcademy requires an API key which can be created with a free account.

Examples requesting the block record for height 0:

# Request for mainnet ('xch' currency symbol) using Spacescan
$ curl 'https://api2.spacescan.io/1/xch/block/height/0' | jq '.data.foliage.prev_block_hash'

OR

# Request for mainnet using FireAcademy
$ curl -X POST \
       -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
       https://kraken.fireacademy.io/[api-key]/leaflet/get_block_record_by_height \
       -d '{"height": 0}' \
  | jq '.block_record.prev_hash'

# Response for mainnet
"0xccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a3ff07eb358e8255a65c30a2dce0e5fbb"

# Request for testnet10 ('txch' currency symbol) using Spacescan
$ curl 'https://api2.spacescan.io/1/txch10/block/height/0' | jq '.data.foliage.prev_block_hash'

OR

# Request for testnet10 using FireAcademy
$ curl -X POST \
       -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
       https://kraken.fireacademy.io/[api-key]/leaflet-testnet10/get_block_record_by_height \
       -d '{"height": 0}' \
  | jq '.block_record.prev_hash'

# Response for testnet10
"0xae83525ba8d1dd3f09b277de18ca3e43fc0af20d20c4b3e92ef2a48bd291ccb2"

It is also possible to retrieve block records from a local full node by making JSON RPC requests to the get_block_record_by_height endpoint documented at Full Node RPC Endpoints. The value of the prev_hash property will contain the genesis challenge for the blockchain. Instructions for installing and running a full node can be found at Chia Installation Instructions.

Example:

# Request
$ curl -X POST \
       --insecure \
       --cert ~/.chia/mainnet/config/ssl/full_node/private_full_node.crt \
       --key ~/.chia/mainnet/config/ssl/full_node/private_full_node.key \
       -H "Accept: application/json" \
       -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
       https://localhost:8555/get_block_record_by_height \
       -d '{"height":0}' \
  | jq '.block_record.prev_hash'

# Response
0xccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a3ff07eb358e8255a65c30a2dce0e5fbb

In the above examples, the previous block’s hash is the string "0xccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a3ff07eb358e8255a65c30a2dce0e5fbb".

The CAIP-2 chain reference can be obtained by skipping the 0x prefix and truncating the remaining hex string to the first 32 characters, yielding:
ccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a

The fully resolved namespace can be obtained by joining the strings "chia", ":", <chain reference> Using the above example, the fully resolved namespace would be: chia:ccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a

Backwards Compatibility

Not applicable

Test Cases

This is a list of manually composed examples

# Chia Mainnet
chia:ccd5bb71183532bff220ba46c268991a

# Chia Testnet10
chia:ae83525ba8d1dd3f09b277de18ca3e43

References

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.

Citation

Please cite this document as:

Jeff Cruikshank, "namespaces/chia-caip2: Chia Namespace - Chains [DRAFT]," Chain Agnostic Namespaces, chia-caip2, May 2023 / . [Online serial]. Available: https://github.com/ChainAgnostic/namespaces/chia-caip2.md