Launch an Ethereum Dapp on Dijets Utility Chain

The purpose of this document is to help you with launching and/or porting an existing dapp running on Ethereum to Dijets Utility Chain. It contains a series of resources designed to help you get the basics of:

1. How Dijets Utility Chain runs.
2. How to connect to Dijets ternary chains specifically the Utility Chain.
3. How to use your favourite tools & environments in developing and deploying on Dijets.
4. Key differentiators between Dijets Utility Chain as an EVM and Ethereum.

Dijets - The Lightweight & Low-fee alternative to Ethereum#

Dijets is an extremely lightweight & versatile protocol built to bridge the gap between developers, enterprises and blockchain technology. It is a platform that provides the fundamentals upon which other platforms and blockchains can thrive and build on top. Dijets allows anyone to create their own tailor-made & "Application Specific" blockchains. Each Blockchain in Dijets is an instance of a virtual machine just as the Utility Chain is an instance of Ethereum Vritual Machine. Custom VMs can be deployed on a custom blockchain network, called a subnetwork, which consists of a dynamic set of validators all working together to achieve consensus on (x)blockchains.

Dijets is a heterogeneous network, that doesn't follow the convention of a single chain running a single, uniform blocks structure. Its comprised of multiple Subnetworks, each one of them in turn running one or more of their own heterogeneous child chains.

Dijets offers an extremely lightweight and low-cost alternative to Ethereum. If you are a developer who wishes to keep everything running the same as Ethereum but cut the costs significantly lower and almost negligible levels with the added benefit of having transaction finality of less than one second than we invite you to try out Dijets for all its benefits it brings to developers who share our vision for an open, more secure and fairer Web 3.0.

Accessing Dijets Utility Chain#

Dijets Utility Chain exposes the same API as go-ethereum, so you can use all the familiar APIs that are available on Ethereum for interaction with the platform.

There are multiple ways of working with the Dijets Utility Chain.

With Decypher - Browser Extension#

Powered by Dijets Protocol, Decypher is a Google Chrome browser extension that lets you interact with Dijets Utility Chain to its full extent. Users can not only make transfers, but swap assets and tokens, vote on proposals and much more from within their browsers.

Through MetaMask#

You can access Dijets Utility Chain through MetaMask, by defining a custom network. Go to MetaMask, log in, click the network dropdown, and select 'Custom RPC'. Data for Dijets Utility Chain is as follows.

Dijets Mainnet Settings:

• Network Name: Dijets Utility Chain
• New RPC URL: https://dijets.ukwest.cloudapp.azure.com:443/ext/bc/C/rpc
• ChainID: 98200
• Symbol: DJT
• Explorer: https://utility-explorer.swedencentral.cloudapp.azure.com/

In your application's web interface, you can add Dijets programmatically so your users don't have to enter the network data manually.

Using the Public API Nodes#

Instead of proxying network operations through MetaMask, you can use the public API, which consists of a number of DijetsNodeGo nodes behind a load balancer.

The Dijets Utility Chain API endpoint is https://dijets.ukwest.cloudapp.azure.com:443/ext/bc/C/rpc for the Mainnet.

For more information, see documentation.

However, public API does not expose all the APIs that are available on the node, as some of them would not make sense on a publicly accessible service, and some would present a security risk. If you need to use an API that is not available publicly, you can always run your own node.

Running Your Own Node#

If you don't want your dapp to depend on a centralized service you don't control, or have specific needs that cannot be met through the public API, you can run your own node and access the network that way. Running your own node also avoids potential issues with public API congestion and rate-limiting.

For development and experimental purposes, here is a tutorial that shows how to download, build, and install DijetsNodeGo.

Node Configuration#

Node configuration options are explained here. But unless you have specific needs, you can mostly leave the main node config options as they are on default.

On the other hand, you will most likely need to adjust Dijets Utility Chain configuration to suit your intended use. You can look up complete configuration options for Dijets Utility Chain here. Note that only the options that are different from their default values need to be included in the config file.

By default, the config file for Dijets Utility Chain is located at $HOME/.dijetsnodego/configs/chains/utility-chain/config.json. This default location for the config file can also be changed by specifying the new location when starting up the node.

Running an Archive Node

An Archive Node stores and maintains the full blockchain data on disk and and also builds an archive of historical states of the blockchain. The Archive Nodes are useful when querying historical blockchain state and data that is not accessible on other nodes.

If you need Ethereum Archive Node functionality, you need to disable a default feature flag in Dijets Utility Chain called Pruning To preserve the full historical state with your node, include "pruning-enabled": false in the Dijets Utility Chain config file.

Running a Node in Debug Mode

By default, debug APIs are disabled. To enable them, you need to enable the appropriate EVM APIs in the config file by including the eth-apis value in your Dijets Utility Chain config file.

Example Dijets Utility Chain Config File

Here's an example of a Dijets Utility Chain config file that includes:

1. The Archive Mode
2. Debug APIs
3. Default EVM APIs

Default config values for the Dijets Utility Chain can be seen here.

Running a Local Test Network#

Dijets-Up was built specifically for the purpose of testing dapps and upgrades on a private test network before releasing on the Mainnet. Similar to the Ganache tool on Ethereum, Dijets-up lets you build and run private Dijets networks.

Developing and Deploying Contracts#

Dijets Utility Chain is a fully compatible Ethereum Blockchain which allows developers to continue using the same tools and environments they are familiar with to not only develop & deploy new DApps but also port their existing DApps over to Dijets Utility Chain without the hassle that comes with having to learn a whole new set of tools.

Remix#

You can use Remix with either Decypher or Metamask to deploy your smart contracts to Dijets Utility Chain.

Follow this tutorial to learn how.

Truffle#

You can also use Truffle exactly like you would on Ethereum to test and deploy smart contracts on Dijets Utility Chain.

Find out how in this tutorial.

Hardhat#

Hardhat is another well known testing environment tool for Solidity smart contracts, which is compatible with Dijets Utility Chain.

Click here to learn how to use HardHat with Dijets.

Dijets Utility Chain Explorer#

An essential part of the smart contract development environment is the explorer, which indexes and serves blockchain data. Thanks to the amazing work done by the guys at BlockScout, [Dijets Utility Chain explorer] (https://utility-explorer.swedencentral.cloudapp.azure.com/) is the perfect tool that lets you browse, analyse, query and confirm the transactions, validators, delegators, assets and smart contracts activity on Dijets Utility Chain. The Explorer also exposes the standard Ethereum JSON RPC API.

Dijets Faucet#

Dijets Faucet was built to providee users and developers with small amounts of Test Tokens for testing purposes. If you are a developer looking to test your DApp's functionality then you will need Dijets Test Tokens. These tokens have no monetary value and can only be used for testing DApps or trying out different features of Dijets Wallet when connected to the Testnet.

Dijets Faucet sends a fixed amount of test tokens to the address of your choice. Simple paste your Dijets Utility Chain address when prompted and the test tokens will instantly be transferred into your wallet.

Contract Verification#

Smart contract verification is an important tool for developers that provides transparency for users interacting with their smart contracts or DApps. When a developer publishes their source code to be verified, it allows everyone to attest to its functionality and usability.

The procedure to verify a smart contract on Dijets Utility Chain Explorer is as follows:

• Search and navigate to your published contract address on the explorer
• Look for the Code tab, select and then click Verify & Publish
• You can choose several options here to verify your contract. The quickest & the simplest way is to Copy and Paste the flattened source code and enter all the build parameters exactly as they were used when publishing the contract.
• Click Verify & Publish

If successful, the Code tab will now have a green checkmark next to it. The checkmark is a positive resffirmation to your users that they can trust your contract.

See this for a detailed tutorial with Truffle.

Key Differentiators to Ethereum#

Dijets Utility Chain is an EVM-compatible chain, it should be noted that it is not an identical chain to Ethereum and has some key differentiators. Ignoring these can lead to inconsistencies and unstable DApp behaviour.

Here are the main differences developers should be aware of when working with Dijets.

Time Measurement#

Ethereum uses consistent block times as a mechanism to measure time. Dijets on the other hand supports asynchronous block issuance with a production rate of 1 block every 2 seconds. Block production in Dijets is directly proportional to its demand i.e the greater the demand is the higher the block production rate is. If there is enough demand, a block can be produced earlier and if there is no demand, a block will not be produced until there are enough transactions for the network to process.

Measuring the passage of time based on the number of blocks being produced will result in inaccurate timestamps and consequently the smart contracts can be open to manipulation by bad actors.

Time in Dijets can simply be read by reading the timestamp attached to each produced block instead of being measured by the block rate. Timestamps are accurate because they are guaranteed to continue increasing and be within 30 seconds of the real time.

Finality#

Ethereum blockchain can be reorganized and blocks can be orphaned even when the block has been accepted Unless the block in question is at least 6 places deep. You can not simply just rely on a block's finality Ethereum just because it has been accepted. A Block needs to be several blocks further away from the tip before its considered final and accepted.

Dijets has no grey areas as such. Blocks are gguaranteed to either be accepted or rejected within one to two seconds of submission. As soon as the block is accepted, in Dijets, it is confined within the ledger to the proverbial and literal point of no return zone. It is final, and cannot be replaced, manipulated, tampered, dropped, or modified in any way. That's also the reason why Dijets has no concept of number of confirmations.

Support#

For questions problems or topics deemed out of scope for this guide, please feel free to reach out to us on our public support space on Qowalts. Drop in for a chat, or share with us what you plan on building on Dijets.