Rust for Blockchain Application Development: Learn to build decentralized applications on popular blockchain technologies using Rust

Cover....1 Title Page....2 Copyright and Credits....3 Dedicated....4 Contributors ....5 Table of Contents ....8 Preface....16 Part 1: Blockchains and Rust....22 Chapter 1: Blockchains with Rust....24 Laying the foundation with the building blocks of blockchains....24 Blocks....26 Hashes....27 Transactions....28 Security....29 Storage versus compute....30 Exploring the backbone of blockchains....31 Decentralization....31 Peers, nodes, validators, and collators....32 Consensus....34 Mining....36 Forking....37 Permissioned versus permissionless....38 Understanding decentralization....39 Replication....40 Governance....40 Cryptocurrencies and gas fees....40 Decentralized platforms....41 Tokens versus coins and ICOs....42 Smart contracts and NFTs....44 DAOs....45 Non-censorable apps....46 Digital assets with real-world limits....46 Scaling the blockchain....47 The blockchain trilemma....47 Sharding....48 Interoperability....49 Consensus for scale....49 Parallel processing....50 Layer 2s and side chains....50 ZK rollups and optimistic rollups....51 Introducing smart contracts....51 The future of the adoption of blockchains....52 Industries disrupted....52 Sociocultural and economic changes....52 Summary....53 Chapter 2: Rust – Necessary Concepts for Building Blockchains....54 Introducing Rust....55 The benefit of being statically typed....55 A dive into Rust’s applicability as a systems programming language....55 The reliability of Rust....56 The Rust ownership memory management model....57 Garbage collection....58 Speed and performance....58 Futures, error handling, and memory safety....59 Rust’s advantage for blockchains....59 Blockchains that use Rust....59 Foundry for Ethereum....60 The Fe, Move, and ink! languages....60 Interesting blockchain projects built with Rust....61 Advantages of Rust-based languages compared to Solidity....62 Learning basic Rust concepts....63 Variables and constants....63 Data types....65 Tuples and arrays....66 Numeric operations....67 Stack....68 Heap....68 V-tables....68 Slices....69 Strings....70 Enums....71 Exploring intermediate Rust concepts....73 Control flow....73 While loops....74 Functions....75 Match control flow....76 Structs....77 Vectors....78 Delving deep into advanced Rust concepts....80 Hashmaps....80 Ownership and borrowing....81 Crates, modules, and cargo....83 Summary....85 Part 2: Building the Blockchain....86 Chapter 3: Building a Custom Blockchain....88 Technical requirements....88 Windows installation....89 Mac installation....89 Ubuntu installation....89 VS Code....90 rust-analyzer....92 Cargo....93 Planning our first blockchain project....94 Structs....94 Required functions....99 Getting started with building the blockchain....104 Block....104 Creating the genesis block....108 Using helper functions....111 Exploring embedded databases....115 Summary....117 Chapter 4: Adding More Features to Our Custom Blockchain....118 Technical requirements....118 Connecting the blocks....119 Libraries powering blockchain operations....119 Blockchain functions....121 Starting the node server....133 The server....133 Server struct and implemented methods....134 Enums....136 Helper functions....137 The serve function....144 The Node struct....145 Summary....147 Chapter 5: Finishing Up Our Custom Blockchain....148 Technical requirements....148 Adding memory pools....149 Implementing a memory pool....149 The BlockinTransit implementation....152 Implementing transactions....154 Understanding TXInput transactions....154 Understanding TXOutput transactions....156 Understanding the Transaction implementation....158 Utilizing UTXOs and developing wallets....162 Implementing UTXOSet....162 Implementing wallets....164 Wallets....166 Setting up configurations and utilities....168 The Config implementation....169 Utility functions....170 Understanding the lib.rs file....171 Understanding the Main.rs file....173 Using your custom blockchain....175 Creating a new blockchain....176 Creating a new wallet....177 Checking the wallet balance....178 Starting a node....179 Sending currency....180 Listing all wallet addresses....181 Printing the blockchain....181 Rebuilding the UTXO set....182 Summary....184 Part 3: Building Apps....186 Chapter 6: Using Foundry to Build on Ethereum....188 Introducing Ethereum and Foundry....189 Understanding Ethereum....189 Why Rust and Foundry?....190 Installing Foundry....191 First steps with Foundry....192 Exploring Foundry....193 Working on an existing Foundry project....193 Dependencies....194 Project layout....196 Overview of Forge....197 Forge Standard Library overview....198 Forge commands....199 Understanding Foundry with Cast, Anvil, and Chisel....200 Overview of Cast....200 Overview of Anvil....201 Overview of Chisel....201 Cast, Anvil, and Chisel important commands....202 Testing and deployment....203 Writing tests....204 Fork and fuzz testing....206 Invariant and differential testing....207 Deployment and verification....208 Gas reports and snapshots....208 A project using Foundry....209 Getting started....210 A basic NFT....210 Testing the program....213 Gas reports....213 Summary....215 Chapter 7: Exploring Solana by Building a dApp....216 Introducing dApps....217 What are dApps?....217 Types of dApps....218 Benefits of dApps....219 Setting up the environment for Solana....220 Installing Rust....220 Introducing Solana....221 Why Solana?....223 Generating a local key pair....226 Working with Solana frameworks and tools....227 Introducing Anchor....227 Creating a new Anchor project....230 Building and deploying a dApp....231 Building and deploying with Anchor....231 Running a local ledger....232 Updating the program ID....234 Utilizing Anchor scripts....234 Testing your dApp....235 Creating accounts for our custom dApp....237 Defining accounts for our custom dApp....238 Implementation of message account structure....239 Understanding account sizing and rent in Solana....240 Sizing message accounts....240 Implementation in code....241 Creating our first instruction....242 Introduction to instruction creation....242 Establishing account constraints....245 Implementing logic....247 Safeguarding against invalid data....251 Instruction versus transaction....253 Creating tests for our instructions....254 Creating a client for tests....256 Sending a message....257 Summary....262 Chapter 8: Exploring NEAR by Building a dApp....264 Technical requirements....265 Prerequisites....265 Installation....265 Introducing NEAR....267 Why choose NEAR?....267 Understanding the foundational elements of NEAR....268 Learning about the advanced concepts of NEAR....275 Transactions and gas....275 Data flow....276 Tokens and avoiding loss....280 Storage options....281 Validators and consensus....284 NEAR SDK....284 Getting started with the NEAR blockchain....286 The Contract class....286 State and data structures....289 Transfers and actions....290 Cross contract calls....292 NEAR CLI deep dive....293 Creating our first project with NEAR....293 Understanding the structure and rules of the crossword game....294 Setting up the development environment....294 Creating a smart contract skeleton....295 Testing and deployment....298 Interacting with the contract....299 Summary....300 Part 4: Polkadot and Substrate....302 Chapter 9: Exploring Polkadot, Kusama, and Substrate....304 Introducing Polkadot....304 Interoperability....306 Relay chain....307 Parathreads....308 Bridges....308 Accounts....309 Transactions....309 Tokens and assets....313 NFTs....313 Understanding the core concepts of PolkaDot....314 XCM....314 Shared security....315 Pallets....316 Staking....317 Advanced staking concepts....318 Main actors....320 NPoS election algorithms....322 Learning about Kusama....323 Governance and on-chain upgrades....324 Chaos and experimentation....324 Introducing Substrate....325 Substrate architecture....325 Client and runtime....327 Network types....328 Node types....328 Diving deep into Substrate....329 Runtime interfaces....329 Core primitives....330 FRAME....331 Building custom pallets....332 Forkless and runtime upgrades....333 Consensus....334 Summary....337 Chapter 10: Hands-On with Substrate....338 Technical requirements....338 Installing Substrate....338 Building our own blockchain....339 Starting a local node....339 Installing a frontend template....342 Starting the frontend template....342 Transferring the funds....344 Simulating a network....346 Starting the first blockchain node....346 Adding more nodes....349 Verifying block production....350 Summary....352 Part 5: The Future of Blockchains....354 Chapter 11: Future of Rust for Blockchains....356 What the future looks like for Rust blockchains....356 Popular blockchains....357 Upcoming blockchains....360 Upcoming Rust Web3 projects....365 The Rust community....368 Jobs in the Web3 space....369 Popular job roles....369 How to find Web3 jobs....371 Building a career....372 Going beyond this book....373 Summary....374 Index....376 Other Books You May Enjoy....389