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

Save time, improve stability, and optimize program memory while building decentralized applications on a blockchain using the features and capabilities of Rust

Key Features

• Implement peer-to-peer blockchain using features of the Rust programming language
• Use Rust to build dApps on popular blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, and NEAR
• Optimize Rust code and enhance security updates to deploy a blockchain to production
• Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Book Description

Before Rust, blockchain developers didn’t have a systems programming language that was type-safe, fast, and, at the same time, had stable and easy memory management. Rust proved to be a boon for developers and works as the perfect solution for not only blockchain and protocol development but also dApp development.

Rust for Blockchain Application Development focuses on demonstrating solutions that can help blockchain developers productize decentralized applications using Rust, which is a complex language with a steep learning curve.

This book starts with basic Rust language concepts and then builds on these concepts to enable you to develop your own blockchain from scratch. As you progress, you’ll learn how to build dApps on popular chains like Solana and NEAR. You’ll also be guided through creating Ethereum dApps using Foundry (Rust). Finally, you’ll develop a custom blockchain using Substrate by Parity (Polkadot). The book provides a complete 360-degree view of Rust in the blockchain ecosystem.

By the end of this Rust book, you’ll have a thorough understanding of how to apply your Rust knowledge to building dApps and blockchains from scratch.

What you will learn

• Understand essential Rust concepts required to build blockchain
• Apply blockchain features such as nodes and p2 communication using Rust
• Understand and implement consensus in blockchain
• Build and deploy a dApp on Ethereum with the Foundry framework in Rust
• Develop and deploy a dApp on Solana and the NEAR protocol
• Build a custom blockchain using the Substrate framework by Polkadot

Who this book is for

This Rust programming book is for blockchain developers interested in building dApps on popular blockchains using Rust. Blockchain architects wanting to save time required to go through documentation and understand each technology can also use this book as a quick-start guide. Experience in building applications on blockchain is required, and familiarity with Rust will be helpful but not necessary.