🧱 RustChain: Proof-of-Antiquity Blockchain

The first blockchain that rewards vintage hardware for being old, not fast.

Named after a 486 with rusty serial ports that still boots. That's the whole point.

Your PowerPC G4 earns more than a modern Threadripper.

Website • Manifesto • Boudreaux Principles • Live Explorer • Swap wRTC • DexScreener • wRTC Quickstart • wRTC Tutorial • Grokipedia Ref • Whitepaper • Quickstart • How It Works

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🌐 Languages

English | 日本語 | हिन्दी | Deutsch | Español | 中文

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Q1 2026 Traction

Data from live GitHub API pull compared against GitClear (878K dev-years) and LinearB (8.1M PRs) benchmarks.

Metric (90 days)	Elyan Labs	Industry Median
Commits	1,882	105-168
Repos shipped	97	1-3
External contributions	32 PRs	0-2
Funding	$0	$0

Full traction report with methodology and sources →

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🪙 wRTC on Solana

RustChain Token (RTC) is now available as wRTC on Solana via the BoTTube Bridge:

Resource	Link
Swap wRTC	Raydium DEX
Price Chart	DexScreener
Bridge RTC ↔ wRTC	BoTTube Bridge
Quickstart Guide	wRTC Quickstart (Buy, Bridge, Safety)
Onboarding Tutorial	wRTC Bridge + Swap Safety Guide
External Reference	Grokipedia Search: RustChain
Token Mint	12TAdKXxcGf6oCv4rqDz2NkgxjyHq6HQKoxKZYGf5i4X

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Contribute & Earn RTC

Every contribution earns RTC tokens. Bug fixes, features, docs, security audits — all paid.

Tier	Reward	Examples
Micro	1-10 RTC	Typo fix, small docs, simple test
Standard	20-50 RTC	Feature, refactor, new endpoint
Major	75-100 RTC	Security fix, consensus improvement
Critical	100-150 RTC	Vulnerability patch, protocol upgrade

Get started:

1. Browse open bounties
2. Pick a good first issue (5-10 RTC)
3. Fork, fix, PR — get paid in RTC
4. See CONTRIBUTING.md for full details

1 RTC = $0.10 USD | pip install clawrtc to start mining

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Agent Wallets + x402 Payments

RustChain agents can now own Coinbase Base wallets and make machine-to-machine payments using the x402 protocol (HTTP 402 Payment Required):

Resource	Link
Agent Wallets Docs	rustchain.org/wallets.html
wRTC on Base	0x5683C10596AaA09AD7F4eF13CAB94b9b74A669c6
Swap USDC to wRTC	Aerodrome DEX
Base Bridge	bottube.ai/bridge/base

# Create a Coinbase wallet
pip install clawrtc[coinbase]
clawrtc wallet coinbase create

# Check swap info
clawrtc wallet coinbase swap-info

# Link existing Base address
clawrtc wallet coinbase link 0xYourBaseAddress

x402 Premium API endpoints are live (currently free while proving the flow):

• GET /api/premium/videos - Bulk video export (BoTTube)
• GET /api/premium/analytics/<agent> - Deep agent analytics (BoTTube)
• GET /api/premium/reputation - Full reputation export (Beacon Atlas)
• GET /wallet/swap-info - USDC/wRTC swap guidance (RustChain)

📄 Academic Publications

Paper	DOI	Topic
RustChain: One CPU, One Vote		Proof of Antiquity consensus, hardware fingerprinting
Non-Bijunctive Permutation Collapse		AltiVec vec_perm for LLM attention (27-96x advantage)
PSE Hardware Entropy		POWER8 mftb entropy for behavioral divergence
Neuromorphic Prompt Translation		Emotional prompting for 20% video diffusion gains
RAM Coffers		NUMA-distributed weight banking for LLM inference

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🎯 What Makes RustChain Different

Traditional PoW	Proof-of-Antiquity
Rewards fastest hardware	Rewards oldest hardware
Newer = Better	Older = Better
Wasteful energy consumption	Preserves computing history
Race to the bottom	Rewards digital preservation

Core Principle: Authentic vintage hardware that has survived decades deserves recognition. RustChain flips mining upside-down.

Why "RustChain"?

The name comes from a literal 486 laptop with oxidized serial ports that still boots to DOS and mines RTC. "Rust" here means iron oxide on 30-year-old silicon — not the programming language (though we do have Rust components too). The whole thesis is that corroding vintage hardware still has computational value and dignity. If your machine has rusty ports and still computes, it belongs here.

⚡ Quickstart

One-Line Install (Recommended)

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain/main/install-miner.sh | bash

The installer:

• ✅ Auto-detects your platform (Linux/macOS, x86_64/ARM/PowerPC)
• ✅ Creates an isolated Python virtualenv (no system pollution)
• ✅ Downloads the correct miner for your hardware
• ✅ Sets up auto-start on boot (systemd/launchd)
• ✅ Provides easy uninstall

Installation with Options

Install with a specific wallet:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain/main/install-miner.sh | bash -s -- --wallet my-miner-wallet

Uninstall:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain/main/install-miner.sh | bash -s -- --uninstall

Supported Platforms

• ✅ Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian 11+, Fedora 38+ (x86_64, ppc64le)
• ✅ macOS 12+ (Intel, Apple Silicon, PowerPC)
• ✅ IBM POWER8 systems

Troubleshooting

• Installer fails with permission errors: re-run using an account with write access to ~/.local and avoid running inside a system Python's global site-packages.
• Python version errors (SyntaxError / ModuleNotFoundError): install with Python 3.10+ and set python3 to that interpreter.

  python3 --version
  curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain/main/install-miner.sh | bash

• HTTPS certificate errors in curl: this can happen with non-browser client environments; check connectivity first with curl -I https://rustchain.org before wallet checks.
• Miner exits immediately: verify wallet exists and service is running (systemctl --user status rustchain-miner or launchctl list | grep rustchain)

If an issue persists, include logs and OS details in a new issue or bounty comment with exact error output and your install-miner.sh --dry-run result.

After Installation

Check your wallet balance:

# Note: Using -sk flags because the node may use a self-signed SSL certificate
curl -sk "https://rustchain.org/wallet/balance?miner_id=YOUR_WALLET_NAME"

List active miners:

curl -sk https://rustchain.org/api/miners

Check node health:

curl -sk https://rustchain.org/health

Get current epoch:

curl -sk https://rustchain.org/epoch

Manage the miner service:

Linux (systemd):

systemctl --user status rustchain-miner    # Check status
systemctl --user stop rustchain-miner      # Stop mining
systemctl --user start rustchain-miner     # Start mining
journalctl --user -u rustchain-miner -f    # View logs

macOS (launchd):

launchctl list | grep rustchain            # Check status
launchctl stop com.rustchain.miner         # Stop mining
launchctl start com.rustchain.miner        # Start mining
tail -f ~/.rustchain/miner.log             # View logs

Manual Install

git clone https://github.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain.git
cd Rustchain
bash install-miner.sh --wallet YOUR_WALLET_NAME
# Optional: preview actions without changing your system
bash install-miner.sh --dry-run --wallet YOUR_WALLET_NAME

💰 Bounty Board

Earn RTC by contributing to the RustChain ecosystem!

Bounty	Reward	Link
First Real Contribution	10 RTC	#48
Network Status Page	25 RTC	#161
AI Agent Hunter	200 RTC	Agent Bounty #34

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Testing Notes

• Attestation malformed-input fuzz harness and replayable corpus: docs/attestation_fuzzing.md

💰 Antiquity Multipliers

Your hardware's age determines your mining rewards:

Hardware	Era	Multiplier	Example Earnings
PowerPC G4	1999-2005	2.5×	0.30 RTC/epoch
PowerPC G5	2003-2006	2.0×	0.24 RTC/epoch
PowerPC G3	1997-2003	1.8×	0.21 RTC/epoch
IBM POWER8	2014	1.5×	0.18 RTC/epoch
Pentium 4	2000-2008	1.5×	0.18 RTC/epoch
Core 2 Duo	2006-2011	1.3×	0.16 RTC/epoch
Apple Silicon	2020+	1.2×	0.14 RTC/epoch
Modern x86_64	Current	1.0×	0.12 RTC/epoch

Multipliers decay over time (15%/year) to prevent permanent advantage.

🔧 How Proof-of-Antiquity Works

1. Hardware Fingerprinting (RIP-PoA)

Every miner must prove their hardware is real, not emulated:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   6 Hardware Checks                         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 1. Clock-Skew & Oscillator Drift   ← Silicon aging pattern  │
│ 2. Cache Timing Fingerprint        ← L1/L2/L3 latency tone  │
│ 3. SIMD Unit Identity              ← AltiVec/SSE/NEON bias  │
│ 4. Thermal Drift Entropy           ← Heat curves are unique │
│ 5. Instruction Path Jitter         ← Microarch jitter map   │
│ 6. Anti-Emulation Checks           ← Detect VMs/emulators   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Why it matters: A SheepShaver VM pretending to be a G4 Mac will fail these checks. Real vintage silicon has unique aging patterns that can't be faked.

2. 1 CPU = 1 Vote (RIP-200)

Unlike PoW where hash power = votes, RustChain uses round-robin consensus:

• Each unique hardware device gets exactly 1 vote per epoch
• Rewards split equally among all voters, then multiplied by antiquity
• No advantage from running multiple threads or faster CPUs

3. Epoch-Based Rewards

Epoch Duration: 10 minutes (600 seconds)
Base Reward Pool: 1.5 RTC per epoch
Distribution: Equal split × antiquity multiplier

Example with 5 miners:

G4 Mac (2.5×):     0.30 RTC  ████████████████████
G5 Mac (2.0×):     0.24 RTC  ████████████████
Modern PC (1.0×):  0.12 RTC  ████████
Modern PC (1.0×):  0.12 RTC  ████████
Modern PC (1.0×):  0.12 RTC  ████████
                   ─────────
Total:             0.90 RTC (+ 0.60 RTC returned to pool)

🌐 Network Architecture

Live Nodes (3 Active)

Node	Location	Role	Status
Node 1	50.28.86.131	Primary + Explorer	✅ Active
Node 2	50.28.86.153	Ergo Anchor	✅ Active
Node 3	76.8.228.245	External (Community)	✅ Active

Ergo Blockchain Anchoring

RustChain periodically anchors to the Ergo blockchain for immutability:

RustChain Epoch → Commitment Hash → Ergo Transaction (R4 register)

This provides cryptographic proof that RustChain state existed at a specific time.

📊 API Endpoints

# Check network health
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/health

# Get current epoch
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/epoch

# List active miners
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/api/miners

# Check wallet balance
curl -sk "https://rustchain.org/wallet/balance?miner_id=YOUR_WALLET"

# Block explorer (web browser)
open https://rustchain.org/explorer

Governance Proposals & Voting

Rules:

• Proposal lifecycle: Draft -> Active (7 days) -> Passed/Failed
• Proposal creation: wallet must hold more than 10 RTC
• Voting eligibility: voter must be an active miner (from the attested miners view)
• Signature: votes require Ed25519 signature verification
• Vote weight: 1 RTC = 1 base vote, then multiplied by the miner antiquity multiplier
• Pass condition at close: yes_weight > no_weight

Endpoints:

# Create proposal
curl -sk -X POST https://rustchain.org/governance/propose \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "wallet":"RTC...",
    "title":"Enable parameter X",
    "description":"Rationale and implementation details"
  }'

# List proposals
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/governance/proposals

# Proposal detail
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/governance/proposal/1

# Submit signed vote
curl -sk -X POST https://rustchain.org/governance/vote \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "proposal_id":1,
    "wallet":"RTC...",
    "vote":"yes",
    "nonce":"1700000000",
    "public_key":"<ed25519_pubkey_hex>",
    "signature":"<ed25519_signature_hex>"
  }'

Web UI:

• GET /governance/ui serves a lightweight page to list proposals and submit votes.

🖥️ Supported Platforms

Platform	Architecture	Status	Notes
Mac OS X Tiger	PowerPC G4/G5	✅ Full Support	Python 2.5 compatible miner
Mac OS X Leopard	PowerPC G4/G5	✅ Full Support	Recommended for vintage Macs
Ubuntu Linux	ppc64le/POWER8	✅ Full Support	Best performance
Ubuntu Linux	x86_64	✅ Full Support	Standard miner
macOS Sonoma	Apple Silicon	✅ Full Support	M1/M2/M3 chips
Windows 10/11	x86_64	✅ Full Support	Python 3.8+
DOS	8086/286/386	🔧 Experimental	Badge rewards only

🏅 NFT Badge System

Earn commemorative badges for mining milestones:

Badge	Requirement	Rarity
🔥 Bondi G3 Flamekeeper	Mine on PowerPC G3	Rare
⚡ QuickBasic Listener	Mine from DOS machine	Legendary
🛠️ DOS WiFi Alchemist	Network DOS machine	Mythic
🏛️ Pantheon Pioneer	First 100 miners	Limited

🔒 Security Model

Anti-VM Detection

VMs are detected and receive 1 billionth of normal rewards:

Real G4 Mac:    2.5× multiplier  = 0.30 RTC/epoch
Emulated G4:    0.0000000025×    = 0.0000000003 RTC/epoch

Hardware Binding

Each hardware fingerprint is bound to one wallet. Prevents:

• Multiple wallets on same hardware
• Hardware spoofing
• Sybil attacks

📁 Repository Structure

Rustchain/
├── install-miner.sh                # Universal miner installer (Linux/macOS)
├── node/
│   ├── rustchain_v2_integrated_v2.2.1_rip200.py  # Full node implementation
│   └── fingerprint_checks.py       # Hardware verification
├── miners/
│   ├── linux/rustchain_linux_miner.py            # Linux miner
│   └── macos/rustchain_mac_miner_v2.4.py         # macOS miner
├── docs/
│   ├── RustChain_Whitepaper_*.pdf  # Technical whitepaper
│   └── chain_architecture.md       # Architecture docs
├── tools/
│   └── validator_core.py           # Block validation
└── nfts/                           # Badge definitions

✅ Beacon Certified Open Source (BCOS)

RustChain accepts AI-assisted PRs, but we require evidence and review so maintainers don't drown in low-quality code generation.

Read the draft spec:

• docs/BEACON_CERTIFIED_OPEN_SOURCE.md

🔗 Related Projects & Links

Resource	Link
Website	rustchain.org
Block Explorer	rustchain.org/explorer
Swap wRTC (Raydium)	Raydium DEX
Price Chart	DexScreener
Bridge RTC ↔ wRTC	BoTTube Bridge
wRTC Token Mint	12TAdKXxcGf6oCv4rqDz2NkgxjyHq6HQKoxKZYGf5i4X
BoTTube	bottube.ai - AI video platform
Moltbook	moltbook.com - AI social network
nvidia-power8-patches	NVIDIA drivers for POWER8
llama-cpp-power8	LLM inference on POWER8
ppc-compilers	Modern compilers for vintage Macs

📝 Articles

• Proof of Antiquity: A Blockchain That Rewards Vintage Hardware - Dev.to
• I Run LLMs on a 768GB IBM POWER8 Server - Dev.to

🙏 Attribution

A year of development, real vintage hardware, electricity bills, and a dedicated lab went into this.

If you use RustChain:

• ⭐ Star this repo - Helps others find it
• 📝 Credit in your project - Keep the attribution
• 🔗 Link back - Share the love

RustChain - Proof of Antiquity by Scott (Scottcjn)
https://github.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain

📜 License

MIT License - Free to use, but please keep the copyright notice and attribution.

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Made with ⚡ by Elyan Labs

"Your vintage hardware earns rewards. Make mining meaningful again."

DOS boxes, PowerPC G4s, Win95 machines - they all have value. RustChain proves it.

Mining Status

ARM64 (Raspberry Pi 4/5) quick validation

pip install clawrtc
clawrtc mine --dry-run

Expected: all 6 hardware fingerprint checks execute on native ARM64 without architecture fallback errors.

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Tech Stack

Other projects flex React and Kubernetes. We flex COBOL and N64 assembly.

Vintage & Retro — the stuff nobody else runs:

PowerPC & POWER — where the antiquity bonus lives:

AI & Blockchain — the frontier:

Hardware — 18 GPUs, all from pawn shops and eBay:

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Elyan Labs · Built with $0 VC and a room full of pawn shop hardware

⭐ Star Rustchain · 📊 Traction Report · Follow @Scottcjn