README.md

Babylon Timestamping Demo

This repository contains all the necessary artifacts and instructions to set up and run a Babylon network locally, for a BTC timestamping demo scenario.

This repository is based on and adapted from the babylon-deployment repository.

A detailed blog post has been crafted to shed light on Babylon's innovative use of the Bitcoin time-stamping protocol, enhancing Blockchain security and data integrity. This exploration delves into the mechanisms Babylon employs to integrate with Bitcoin, offering a unique perspective on blockchain technology's future.

Read the full article here for a deeper understanding.

Prerequisites

1. Install Docker Desktop

   All components are executed as Docker containers on the local machine, so a local Docker installation is required. Depending on your operating system, you can find relevant instructions here.

2. Install make

   Required to build the service binaries. One tutorial that can be followed is this.

3. Clone the repository

   The aforementioned components are included in the repo as git submodules, so they need to be initialized accordingly.

   git clone [email protected]:babylonchain/babylon-timestamping-demo.git

Deployment scenarios

The deployment scenarios live under the deployments directory, on a dedicated subdirectory. The following scenarios are currently available:

• BTC Timestamping (BTC backend: bitcoind): Spawns a Babylon network featuring Babylon's BTC Timestamping protocol, backed by a bitcoind-based BTC simnet using bitcoindsim.

Subdirectory structure and deployment process

Each deployment scenario subdirectory follows the structure indicated below:

├── artifacts
│   ├── docker-compose.yml
│   ├── ...
├── Makefile
├── post-deployment.sh
└── pre-deployment.sh

BTC Timestamping (BTC backend: bitcoind)

To start the network:

make start-deployment-timestamping-bitcoind

To stop the network:

make stop-deployment-timestamping-bitcoind