Ethereum Wire Protocol

While Flare uses go as a system controller for Nodes, the primary library for interacting with ethereum, web3, uses javascript. The controller connects over websockets to a meteor server which exists for the sole purpose of interacting with the ethereum network. Below is their communication protocol.

Initialization

This is the first thing sent from the controller to the ethereum handler and it allows the handler to define variables needed for further action.

flag: "init", privateKey: string, ident: string, coinbase: string, contract: string

• flag must be the string init
• privateKey is a 64 byte ethereum private key that can be used to sign transactions from coinbase
• ident is a unique node identifier
• coinbase is either a 40 byte ethereum address or 42 byte ethereum address prefixed by '0x' representing the desired address to send payouts
• contract is either a 40 byte ethereum address or 42 byte ethereum address prefixed by '0x' representing the address of the flareth contract being used

Processing Payment

The handler asynchronously accepts messages for new operations that the node has completed.

flag: "processPayment", operations: uint

• flag must be the string processPayment
• operations is the number of computations a node has done and is requesting payment for